[Shop-talk] Making a trap door safe

[Rand E]

Someone would then figure out how to 'trip' over the barriers.  

Randy




________________________________
From: Scott <scott.hall.personal at gmail.com>
To: shop-talk at autox.team.net
Sent: Fri, January 18, 2013 7:36:16 AM
Subject: Re: [Shop-talk] Making a trap door safe

All the engineering solutions are pretty cool sounding, but after being a 
landlord myself, there's just no way I'd ever rent out a house with a trapdoor 
in it, no matter what. I'd build a staircase--even outside the house, if I had 
to--before I let tenants use a trapdoor in a hallway. Shoot, I'd nail the 
trapdoor shut and just eliminate access to the basement entirely before I let a 
tenant use a trapdoor.

I don't think you could buy enough liability coverage to cover lifetime skilled 
nursing care for someone falling through that thing. And they will find a way to 
do it. I had a tenant flush a deodorant bottle down a toilet. After that, 
anything seems possible.

For just you guys, you could install gates in the hallway--like a railroad 
crossing barrier. When someone uses the trapdoor, they lower the barriers on 
either side of it. If they were just above waist-height, and if they locked into 
a latch on both sides of the hallway they'd certainly make you aware of their 
presence before you fell into a hole in the floor, no matter how sleepy you 
were. You could even tie them into the operation of the trapdoor itself.

But all that sounds to me like as much work as putting a three-foot bump-out and 
a staircase on an exterior wall.

Scott

On 1/17/2013 7:40 PM, Eric J Russell wrote:
> I'm imagining something like the mechanisms at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. 
>When the doors are opened a hidden pulley system could move bars - like the 
>trafficators on an olde English car - into the hallways around the opening.
> 
> Can you upload a photo of the floor doors for us to peruse? Us visual learners 
>like photos...
> 
> Eric Russell
> Mebane, NC
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Stone"
> 
> 
>> I can envision an elaborate system where three barriers would 'unfold' when the 
>>door was opened, 
>>
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