Vanderwerff Construction Company

Part of my interest in building green comes from a Montessori School project we are currently working on in Wheeling, IL. The Owner approached me after we had started with the design of the new facility and wanted to get the building LEED certified. At the time I knew very little about Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification. Therefore I attended The Greenbuild Chicago held at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL last year. I also took the intro to LEED 101 class at the convention.

As I became more familiar with building green, the U. S. Green Building Council (USCBC), and LEED it began to generate more questions I had. I decided to attend an all day workshop/class; LEED for New Construction and Major Renovation in May, 2008. This really opened my eyes to the advantages to build green and the challenges to get the building LEED certified. It was interesting and really got me enthused to learn more. When I returned to my office I used the handbook and started to apply it to the Montessori School. I am sure now that I will continue to learn more about LEED and building green as it is the future of construction.

Automatic doors are used for customer convenience, to assist disabled individuals, for busy employees, or for anyone who finds a closed door a problem. These automatic doors are powered to the opened and closed position. Automatic doors can be operated by the push of a button, through a sensor or a radio transmittal/receiver.

Doors can be many different types; swinging, sliding, folding, and revolving. The swinging type of door is the most common and can be either a single or a double door. The sliding door does not project out into the usable space but will require wall space to slide out of the way. The sliding door can also be either a single or a double door. The folding door is used to maximize the clear door opening within a confined space. The revolving door virtually eliminates draft and prevents wild fluctuations in temperature.

Another use for an automatic door has to do with meeting the Illinois accessibility code on an existing building. We had a situation where the latch side of a restroom door was positioned in the corner hallway. The latch side of the door was supposed to have 18″ clearance from the corner for proper accessibility but existed with only a few inches clearance. In this situation the local code official accepted our use of the automatic door opener with a button operator. By adding the operator we not only made the door accessible but also saved thousands of remodeling dollars that moving the door for proper clearance would have cost the owner.

Automatic doors are reliable, safe, and a convenient way to provide easy access to buildings for all of us.

Each jurisdiction has to be looked at carefully as the requirements can vary considerably from city to city, or state to state. Since I work out of Northeastern Illinois I am mainly familiar with the Illinois accessibility code.

Approaching straight on from the front, a door that swings out towards you requires a clearance of 18″ minimum from the latch side of the door edge to the left or to the right. This is required when a door has both a latch and a closure. This is mostly scrutinized when the door is located in a narrow hallway or alcove. Therefore if you have a narrow hallway with a 36″ wide door and a 2″ frame at the end of the hallway, the minimum width of the hallway would be 56″. This assumes you would hold the hinge side of the frame tight to one of the hall walls. If space allows, a 58″ hall width would work better. This allows the door to stand at 90° in the open position.

Side approaches to the door have different requirements from the front approach discussed above.

Part of finding the best location for an elevator is to make sure there are no major obstacles on the roof. It is generally required in order to meet safety clearances above the elevator cab that the roof is raised in the area above the elevator shaft.

It is simply a structural challenge assuming that the ideal location chosen by your design-build professional does not have a rooftop unit and related duct work or other major obstacles . Often the new shaft walls will support the roof around the new opening or perhaps some added columns and beams may be needed.

Every building is different as some roofs are supported by bar joists and steel decking, where others are precast concrete and still others are framed with wood joists, beams and wooded decking.

Each situation would require a difference structural answer depending on the existing structure and existing loads on that structure. You may rely on your local design-build general contractor for answers to these questions.

The biggest obstacle for installing an elevator in an existing building is finding the best location. The toughest challenge, however, lies with making alterations to the structure.

The foundation can prove to be very tricky, but is usually necessary with an in ground hydraulic elevator. This is accomplished by cutting out the lowest levels of concrete floor, excavating (usually by hand), and carrying buckets of soil from the lower level to the outside of the building to be properly disposed of. The existing foundation most likely will need to be shored up or underpinned to keep it stable, as the excavating proceeds.

A new foundation the size of the elevator shaft needs to be formed and poured. The biggest potential problems during this process are often the soil conditions. You would be lucky if you have dry clay to work with. Running water, sand, or pea gravel is occasionally encountered. If water is present, it must be controlled. The sand and pea gravel may be easier to dig then clay but it “caves” in and can undermine the stability of the existing structure.

In extreme cases it may be necessary to drive piling into the ground to hold the unstable soil in place. Driving piles can be difficult due to head room clearance restrictions inside an existing building.

Once the water and soil has been stabilized and/or removed, the elevator foundation can be placed.

It is important to rely on an experienced general contractor in these situations.