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Comment by Terr_ | Hacker News Reader

> "Fire door, alarm will sound".

IMO those doors shouldn't just have a sign-sticker slapped on them, there ought to be something visually (and tactilely) different about the push-bar itself.

P S.: For example, a wavy bar, or a bunch of distinctly raised bumps on the surface in strong contrasting color like high-vis yellow with reflectivity.

Since this is for an indoor surface nobody should be touching, that means durability isn't a big issue: Just stick some adhesive blister-chunks onto whichever push-bar happens to need the warning, and then scrape them off if the situation changes.

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Many of these, however, should just be doors. For many of them the alarming of them seems unnecessary.

The whole reason that I had keys to enable/disable the alarm was specifically because the Outdoor Program that I worked at needed to load in/out large equipment (think canoes, bikes, sleds, etc) that was ungainly to move through the locker room. This was also the primary avenue for moving e.g. weight room equipment in and out of the facility. So while it didn't get used a lot for non-emergency use, it got used often enough that non-durable controls would degrade much too quickly.

Break glass works if sign discovery was the only issue.

Many times (especially students), they simply don’t care. Replace the glass and the next day it’s broken anyway. The only solution I’ve seen that works against that is covering the door handle in super sticky ball bearing grease.

Another option in use around here require the user to break glass before being able to use the door; as with fire alarms, having to break something has been proven extremely effective in deterring misuse, accidental or unintentional use of things like fire exits.

Often emergency doors need to open in situations like dim lighting and a crush/stampede of people behind you, which makes it hard to create a safe implementation for whoever happens to be at the front.

In the safest implementations, the person doesn't even need to know they are about to break something by pushing the bar... But puts us back at square one except with more maintenance headaches.

Red scotch tape over door handle is much easier to apply or replace.

Just coat the bar in anti-climb paint.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-climb_paint

But what if an actual emergency occurs? People still need to be able to reliably grip and manipulate the door bar/plates/handles, you can't just make them super slippery all the time.

The ones in the US are simply a crash bar. I suppose you could argue that someone might choose to burn instead of getting grease on their hands, but that sounds unlikely.

TIL. Wanted to get some for my 2 yr old but it sounds slightly toxic.

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