I was asked to wire up a burglar alarm in a jewelry store in a strip mall.
The customer wants a maglock on their inner door. I pointed out the security risk of what would happen if the fire alarm goes off (maybe even on purpose) and then the door will open. Any suggestions to avoid that?
Any other pointer about a jewelry store?
Thank you
In general, Fire evacuation based life/safety codes aren't negotiable. You may be able to suggest modifications that maintain egress through other pathways, but if the maglocked door is required for egress it is not likely negotiable.
I have seen some places in the past used a maglock and door strike combination, with a mechanical egress on the inside. Like a push bar, or a door handle locked on outside, unlocked on inside.
So if the fire alarm goes off, maglock releases, but door strike can stay active, as all they have to do now is push the bar, or turn the handle and walk out. Same for power outages and such, in my region not allowed battery back up on MagLocks.
But then you may also have situations where the AHJ says no maglocks what so ever, I have run into this. We told the customer to check with the building inspector, and he said no maglocks at all, even with pull stations, or what have you.
In my own experience, jewelry stores like to try and skirt around the rules. We had one in our area who wants to do a man trap in his vestibule. Maglocks on the inner and outer doors. We said that's not legal. He didn't care, he some how convinced the installer onsite to set it up for him. Few years later something went wrong, and that's when the office found out. One of the maglocks had stopped working, we refused to fix it as it was not allowed.
Basically, get the customer to check with local building/fire inspectors. They will tell you what you need to make a maglock legal, if anything at all.
Does it have to be a maglock? Is there a crashbar that would allow a rim mounted strike. Could you use a electric deadlatch with a paddle. I would assume this is an aluminum storefront? Either solution would allow free egress. Also I would guess they have either used a maglock before or have seen these but don't know what other options there are as well.
Step 1 - Don't use a maglock.
That should be the first step in any security project that actually cares about security. Full stop.
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