We've been building a new home for my parents that has a poured concrete basement. I really wanted there to be no indication of a basement being visible from the outside, opsec and all that, but the county insisted that there be a second and direct exit. What we ended up with is a form of escape hatch that has (or will have) a door that goes to a vertical tunnel with a ladder attached to the wall and it can have a lockable bulkhead on the outside. There is a door that goes from this hatch tunnel into the basement proper. Naturally I want this to be secure and my thoughts gravitated towards a steel door with a steel frame secured into the concrete and had communicated these ideas to the general contractor.
We're at the stage where we activated the heating system under conditional power to finish the interior of the house as wood flooring and even painting of the Sheetrock is best done (or necessary for the floor) in a consistent conditioned space.
Anyway, I noticed that the GC had installed a door in this location and it looked like a six panel interior door. WTH??? Last evening I went down in the basement with a flashlight and looked at it. You can see through the door knob / bolt holes that it is wood. The GC claims its a steel door with a wood core. What's more is that it has a wood frame attached to the concrete.... me starting to not like this. The GC claims that it has treated lumber between (so what, it's still wood against concrete which isn't good, especially if water is a possibility which I think would be even with a bulkhead over the hatch area).
The real kicker, however, was that I noticed the door sill plate, which is sloped and that it faces inward (DOH!). What I determined that the guy did is take an outward swinging door and turn it around so that it swung inward. (SMH).
As long as it cam be made secure, an inward door makes some safety sense as it would be a lot harder to block the door from being able to be opened from the outside be it deliberate or by debris.
The basement is solid concrete and above the door was left open. Ideally it probably should have had a steel plate put across the opening and been poured as part of the wall, but it wasn't. The GC's solution was to stick a couple of piece of treated plywood over the hole and fill it with insulation (Jesus Christ on a pogo stick).
We went back and forth, and I could tell I was making him angry, but we finally agreed to get a commercial door that will be grouted into the concrete and find a masonry solution for above the door.
From a construction standpoint, does what I am after make sense and any suggestions as for how best to install this and more importantly how best to fill the wall hole above the door?
We're at the stage where we activated the heating system under conditional power to finish the interior of the house as wood flooring and even painting of the Sheetrock is best done (or necessary for the floor) in a consistent conditioned space.
Anyway, I noticed that the GC had installed a door in this location and it looked like a six panel interior door. WTH??? Last evening I went down in the basement with a flashlight and looked at it. You can see through the door knob / bolt holes that it is wood. The GC claims its a steel door with a wood core. What's more is that it has a wood frame attached to the concrete.... me starting to not like this. The GC claims that it has treated lumber between (so what, it's still wood against concrete which isn't good, especially if water is a possibility which I think would be even with a bulkhead over the hatch area).
The real kicker, however, was that I noticed the door sill plate, which is sloped and that it faces inward (DOH!). What I determined that the guy did is take an outward swinging door and turn it around so that it swung inward. (SMH).
As long as it cam be made secure, an inward door makes some safety sense as it would be a lot harder to block the door from being able to be opened from the outside be it deliberate or by debris.
The basement is solid concrete and above the door was left open. Ideally it probably should have had a steel plate put across the opening and been poured as part of the wall, but it wasn't. The GC's solution was to stick a couple of piece of treated plywood over the hole and fill it with insulation (Jesus Christ on a pogo stick).
We went back and forth, and I could tell I was making him angry, but we finally agreed to get a commercial door that will be grouted into the concrete and find a masonry solution for above the door.
From a construction standpoint, does what I am after make sense and any suggestions as for how best to install this and more importantly how best to fill the wall hole above the door?
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