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Check Your Common Area Doors | ||
Your elevator lobby is a "limited common area." You don't own that space, but you have exclusive day-to-day use of it. You are prohibited by law from removing or tampering with signage or exit lights and from blocking either side of the exit doors that lead to the stair wells. Management still has the right to enter your elevator lobby to inspect the fire safety items and to make sure the space is maintained properly. | ||
The two doors that lead to the stairwells (except for in some penthouse units) should close and latch automatically. You should also be able to feel that the doorknobs are slightly warm to the touch compared to the surface of the door. | ||
These doors are fire rated, and they are required to close and latch to prevent smoke and fire from entering your unit in case of a fire in the building. It is important that they close and latch for this reason - and for your personal security, to prevent unauthorized persons from entering your condo from the stairs. | ||
The reason the door knobs are warm to the touch is that the door hardware is energized as part of the fire safety system. These doors are automatically unlocked when a fire alarm is triggered. | ||
Normally, the doors leading into each elevator lobby are locked. Imagine that you have walked down several flights of stairs during a real emergency like a fire, and you find that the stairs below you are impassible or dangerous. What do you do? Do you walk back up to your own unit, unlock the doors, and go down the other stairs? | ||
No - the stairwell doors at each level should be unlocked when a fire alarm sounds, so that you can enter the elevator lobby and pass through to the other stairwell. | ||
While you're checking your fire exit doors, check your trash chute. Open it and let it close by itself. The trash chute door should automatically close firmly and latch when released. This makes sense, because you don't want to smell the trash, but that's not the most important reason for the door to latch. It must latch to prevent smoke and fire from coming out of the chute in a case where the trash catches fire. | ||
You should become familiar with both stairwells. One leads to the P2 level on the street side of the building and the other leads to the garage roof side. From the street side, you can walk down the ramp to get away from the building. On the roof side, you must take one of two stairways that lead to the ground. Do not use the cabana elevator. | ||