Never really had to consider this here, but certain commercial outside doors have to open outwards for safety reasons. Not sure what they are.
Then wife showed me a picture of your neck of woods with a bloke at his front door opened inwards, with about 2 feet of snow piled against the house.
I imagine if it was an outward opening door then no way could it be opened.
That made me think of the perceived safety issues of having to have an outward opening door.
Also if one had say 2 feet of water piled up outside and one wanted to escape then again there would be no way of opening the door.
Do you have 'safety' issues in how doors are supposed to be swung (hinged)?
Outward opening doors are for escape from fire. Here, most commercial doors have "Panic Bars" on the exterior doors so a person can just "hit" the bar and the door will open outward. There have been cases where people were killed because the press of people from behind prevented an inward opening door from opening.
Andy
For every safety standard, there will be exceptions that will make the standard appear unsafe. Take seat belts for example. 999 out of 1000 times seatbelts will prevent riders from being ejected through the windows or slammed face first into the steering column. There is that 1 out of 1000 chance your vehicle could plunge in the water and you would not be able to escape due to the seatbelt.
I'll go with the odds. The chances of 2 feet of snow out your door AND a fire are next to nil.
You can have it both ways with a normal, inward-opening door and a stormdoor to the outside of that on your house. The stormdoor can be a real PITA when deep snow or freezing ice makes opening it without damaging it quite a trick.
Yes I would prefer a quick exit in fire.
Just had no idea how common occurrence heavy snow was.
People in warmer climates have other hazards that may make opening an outward opening storm door difficult.
Richard
Check out this link: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/mqt/SnowDepthMap/map_only.php
This shows a large part of the State of Michigan as well as much of the State of Wisconsin and southern parts of Canada. Note that the depths are in inches, out on the level, not in drifts. The greenish areas that indicate more than 36 inches of snow may be much, much more than 36 inches in depth. In Houghton, Michigan for example, they normally start using exits from the second story of buildings by mid-Winter.
The large body of water shown is Lake Superior. The narrower body of water below that is part of Lake Michigan.
Exterior residential doors seem to favor opening inwards here.
I never really thought about why that is. Sometimes a secondary or kitchen door will open outwards.
An inward opening door can be more easily closed against an intruder, maybe?
Doors opening must go in!
Maybe a sliding door would be the best of both worlds?
Commercial doors must swing out, but residential doors swing in here?
I know we would not be able to get out our front door about twice a week during the winter if it open out. This problem has gotten much worse since we got the steel roof. Love the roof, but the snow slides right off.
Note the tunnel to the front door and the snow above it about to fall off. The snow on the steep roof has already slide down.
