Article update date: 01/15/2021 02/04/2020
Issues related to
the direction of door opening
are relevant for almost every facility, so it is important to know and follow the rules for opening doors, dictated by
fire safety requirements
.
Even the youngest and most inexperienced fire inspector will definitely pay attention to the direction of door opening
, since this characteristic affects the timely evacuation of people from the building and is checked first. And in any checklist used by the inspector during the inspection, this question is present. In paragraph 27 of the Fire Regulations in the Russian Federation, approved by Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation dated September 16, 2022 No. 1479 “On approval of the Fire Regulations”, there is the following requirement:
"27. When operating evacuation routes, evacuation and emergency exits, it is prohibited:
e) change the direction of door opening, with the exception of doors, the opening of which is not standardized or for which other requirements are imposed.”
So what kind of doors are these, the opening direction of which is prohibited from changing? Which way should they open? What other requirements are we talking about? Let's look at each question in order.
What is the door made of?
The door consists of 3-4 main elements. I’m talking about interior doors now, because we’ll talk about entrance doors at the end:
RECOMMENDED ON THE TOPIC
- Tips for choosing interior doors
- Standard openings and sizes...
- of course this is a door leaf;
- next is the door frame;
- door casing that covers the mounting seam;
- Well, and the fourth, I meant, the door handle.
These four basic elements form the rules for opening doors. We use them to build geometry and guide ourselves when choosing this or that solution for our rooms.
Functionality
But in general, there are positive and negative arguments regarding which way the bathroom door opens. Without taking into account safety advice (this happens quite rarely), you should decide based on convenience and aesthetics. It should not only be practical, but, first of all, not irritate in appearance, and be beautiful.
For many, it is the aesthetic side that is really important: how everything will look when opened in one direction or another, and from which side the hinges will look better. This may seem funny, but the entire interior surrounding the door largely depends on it.
The solution to the problem: where to open the door in the bathroom depends on what you want to load it with. Hooks for towels and bathrobes, and less often mirrors, are often hung on it. It is necessary to think about where the door to the bathroom should open so as not to break or damage the decorative details.
Door dimensions (width and height)
The sizes, of course, are extremely different. The market of choice today is diverse. From the cheapest, some options, to expensive exclusive ones, and it is clear that the sizes there will dance and change a lot.
Here it is important to know some universal values of the same doorways that we use in the project in order to comply with most of all proposals.
- For example: for entrance doors we use an opening width of 1 meter, which is usually enough to select a good entrance door.
- Interior doors are 90 cm, which is enough to make a good full-fledged door. Through which you can enter with bags or bring in furniture.
- In bathrooms and utility rooms, an opening 80 cm wide is sufficient.
And so 1 m, 90 cm, 80 cm, but these are the dimensions of the openings. Keep in mind that the width of the door leaf in this case will be minus 10 cm.
- That is, for the front door the width of the door leaf will be 90 cm.
- For interior (kitchen, bedroom) - 80 cm.
- Toilet, bath and utility room - 70 cm
Here are the main dimensions of openings and canvases that we focus on. These dimensions were fixed in Soviet GOSTs and, in general, in our market, manufacturers are guided by them.
I don’t recommend making the height of doorways less than 210 cm. Yes, in our city apartments sometimes you can make it two meters, but remember that a country house is space, a lot of air and large rooms. Of course, it’s not worth making deliberately low doors there.
SNiP standards
Door installation diagram.
According to the building codes and regulations (SNiP) “Fire safety of buildings and structures” dated January 21, 1997, doors at emergency exits and on evacuation routes must open towards the exit from the building. In all other cases, the direction for opening is not regulated, since there are no standards. Below is a list of them:
- apartment buildings;
- private houses;
- premises in which no more than 15 people can be present at the same time;
- storage rooms with an area of no more than 200 m²;
- bathrooms;
- external walls of buildings located on the northern side of the climate zone.
Fastening the interior door.
However, there is still a general recommendation. Whatever direction the interior door opens, its location should not interfere with the evacuation of people in case of an emergency.
Also, the SNiP document dated January 21, 1997 states that at the design stage of a building it is necessary to position the doors in such a way that when they open simultaneously, they should not block each other. That is why there are situations when in the same room the doors, although they open in one direction, but from different hands. Today, there are “right” and “left” doors. In Russia, these standards differ significantly from European canons. For example, in the case of opening a door with the right hand, it is usually considered “right”. And if you need to use your left hand to open it, then such a door is considered “left-handed”. Experts advise to be extremely careful when purchasing them and not to neglect the advice of consultants. If you need a “left-handed” door, be sure to describe it to the seller as one in which the hinges are located on the left side when opening toward you.
A little about the types of doors
Today I will not focus our attention on the types of various interior doors. It is clear that they are different:
- swing;
- sliding;
- blind doors;
- with glazing.
