Vancouver’s ban on the doorknob

http://www.vancouversun.com/Vancouver+humble+doorknob+likely+trendsetter/9173543/story.html

by sethbannon • 13 years ago

32 77 13 years ago

vancouversun.com

test9394• 13 years ago

Typical Vancouver approach, ban all the things to sound more richeous. "Best place on earth" yeah right.

iLoch• 13 years ago

...That's pretty sour. Come on over, we'll grab a Tim's and talk things out.

lostlogin2• 13 years ago

Exactly. Keep everything legal and just sue each other. Much better.

untog• 13 years ago

Shrug. On the balance of things, I still think Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the Western world. Maybe not so affordable, but still.

moomin• 13 years ago

If you have kids on the way, I highly recommend knobs over levers for the exact reason Vancouver is specifying the opposite: they're harder to open.

Between 1 and 2, it's invaluable.

fatman• 13 years ago

Agree 100% - but now that mine are a bit older, I'd like to replace them all with levers so I can open them with my hands full of laundry, kids, bags, toys, etc...

igravious2• 13 years ago

So patent the knob to lever transformer thingy.

eco• 13 years ago

I replaced the knob on my garage door with this one which opens with basically any manipulation of it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odA_OaVA0PU

I also installed this magnetic door stop on the same door. http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-Hardware-Magnetic-Doorstop-Nic...

These two combined have given me godlike powers of grocery transportation.

adolph• 13 years ago

Saw a demo the other day of a lever that you can also push and pull:

http://brinksppr.com/

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

Child-proof covers for lever door handles work pretty well and cost less than $10. They also can keep clever pets from opening doors with lever handles.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

How many people have pets or children? How many people are incapable of operating a door knob?

It seems to me that having the first group all buy $10 adapters per door will almost certainly be more expensive than having the few people who cannot operate door knobs buy lever handles.

DanBC6• 13 years ago

Install the levers upside down, so you have to lift them, not pull them, to open.

mprovost• 13 years ago

A lot of older houses here (NZ) have the door handles about 3/4 of the way up the door, about chest height for an average adult. I always assumed it was to keep them out of reach of children. In modern times they've moved down to waist height, most likely for accessibility. Which also makes them accessible to kids and pets.

dmix• 13 years ago

I'm curious if all regulation will eventually turn from a blacklist approach into a whitelist one? When every minor detail is finally legislated, the logical end-game is to be told what you can do at every point, instead of simply what you can't.

Note how in this example, it's not just about "banning" door knobs, but about requiring levers.

mhurron• 13 years ago

This looks to be about as 1984 as ADA is. This whole thing appears to be an accessibility issue.

jerf3• 13 years ago

Specifying it for all government or public construction is ADA-ish. Specifying it for private residences is more in the 1984 direction.

I say "in the direction" because no, I don't think this is a boot stomping into our face, forever. But it is heavy handed. Hardly unprecedented, of course. Pushing out "accessibility" requirements into the general home market is something we've not done for good reason; it's an expense incurred quite widely for little societal benefit, unlike public spaces. We can't afford to make every residence everywhere handicapped-accessible, childproofed, elderly-appropriate, etc etc. Private residences do have variance due to the variances in people.

jlgreco8• 13 years ago

ADA was suppose to (figuratively speaking) build ramps, not tear down stairs. There is a theoretical threshold at which we should start considering if we have gone to far.

ISL• 13 years ago

Whitelists are scary for governments. I've asked TSA for whitelisting of DOT-approved materials to be carried onto airplanes (Ferrofluids are inert, but they sure look funny in an X-ray scanner), and they were clear that the ranking TSA officer had final say on all allowed materials at any time. I shipped by mail.

If something _must_ be allowed, then the government is in a tricky spot when someone constructs something that they'd rather not allow entirely from allowed parts.

TL;DR: Blacklists are scary, whitelists are empowering.

DanBC6• 13 years ago

We tried asking people to make things accessible. They told us to fuck off.

Now we just tell them what to do and prosecute if they don't do it.

In this example: Requiring a lever prevents architects doing stupid things with doors. "Oh ho, this is not a door knob!" when it is a door knob, just a different still unusable shape.

shittyanalogy• 13 years ago

But but but, handles get caught on your pant loops.

protomyth6• 13 years ago

I'll go a bit further, if the group you are working for during the summer as a Tutor / Counsellor has bought combination key-chains, ID lanyard to hang around your neck, then friggin handles are an accident waiting to happen.

I was bending down to help pick up a whiteboard (wall mount) and one of the other T/Cs decided to open the door fast[1], catching the lanyard, and sending me head first into the ground. I was knocked-out for about 10mins and was bleeding from my head. I should note that I came too before they had decided if they should call 911. I feared for the children that summer and stopped wearing that damn thing[2].

Handles are bad[3], that is why we use door knobs.

1) She later claim to be an experienced camper and place here tent directly in a ditch prior to a thunderstorm

2) I get a little nervous with ties these days

3) never mind problems with children and large pets

lostlogin2• 13 years ago

My god. I thought I'd done well when mine caught a handle and ripped the pocket off a brand new tailor made shirt work bought for me. Right in front of the managing director, great. Lanyards should always have a release mechanism to prevent throttling etc.

kennywinker3• 13 years ago

This is a case against lanyards as much as it is against door handles.

jtbigwoo4• 13 years ago

> Handles are bad[3], that is why we use door knobs.

It's a bit off topic, but, I was working at a summer camp where a counselor got his lanyard caught on a) a door knob, b) a fixed pull handle and c) a stair railing. He was a taller guy and constantly dropping stuff and bending over to pick it up. The door knob gave him a black eye, the other two just bruised his pride.

He probably should have had one of those wrist lanyards instead.

DanBC6• 13 years ago

That sounds like a poorly designed lanyard-ligature. Proper lanyards have anti-ligature features to prevent the wearer dying in an accident.

graeme• 13 years ago

I've often had headphones get caught on levers. I wonder if there are any studies on this point: "Incidence of clumsy accidents on door levers vs. knobs"

donatj• 13 years ago

I personally find handles much more difficult to use, requiring me to bend my hand to unnatural angles.

kennywinker3• 13 years ago

A proper horizontal door handle can be opened with ones butt cheek while holding stuff.

graywh• 13 years ago

Only if you're tall enough.

colanderman• 13 years ago

Many of them you can open upward in one fluid motion. I find this much easier.

cylinder• 13 years ago

This article is so unnecessarily long. It takes a full page before it even mentions what the doorknobs are being replaced with, and for what reason. It doesn't show a picture of a lever door knob nor does it even explain how one works.

RyanMcGreal• 13 years ago

Third paragraph:

In Vancouver, the doorknob is heading into a setting sun. Its future has been date-marked, legislated out of existence in all future construction, a tip to society’s quest for universal design and the easier-to-use lever handle.

kevinpacheco• 13 years ago

Click on the first photo or the "Photos" link above it to see additional pictures.

bonemachine• 13 years ago

And more importantly, that it's not a "ban" on existing doorknobs, but rather a proscription for new development only.

Linkbait.

knackernews• 13 years ago

For those curious but don't have the time or desire to read 1294 words of fluff, the reason (which I got from another article) is to make buildings more accessible for the elderly, disabled and the arthritic. It's much easier to use a door lever than it is to twist a door knob.

MattGrommes• 13 years ago

The entire article wasn't fluff. One thing it talked about was the idea that this specifically isn't "for the elderly", etc. It's to make it more accessible for everyone, which in turn helps the disabled.

iluvuspartacus• 13 years ago

Max Brooks, if you're reading this, you definitely have to add this little snippet as to why Vancouver fell in the great zombie apocalypse. (While zombies were unable to operate traditional doorknobs due to lack of coordination and mental ability, levers were another story...)

umsm2• 13 years ago

When we remodeled our house, we specifically bought lever-style door handles so that it's easier to open / close doors, easier on arthritic hands, etc.

But, I wonder: Are there are other door mechanisms which will prove easier to use? Did anyone ever install spring controlled doors in a home for this reason?

minikites2• 13 years ago

I'll never understand backlash against accessibility improvements. People fought against ramps and now they're the reason all people can have wheels on their luggage.

Accessibility is important.

Zancarius2• 13 years ago

The accessibility-oriented non-sliding doors I've seen fairly common to most new construction in my part of the US (and likely elsewhere) tends to be electrical button-operated doors. I'd imagine that someone who's wheelchair bound wouldn't find levers to be quite as accessible as electric doors so the accessibility argument seems a bit of a stretch.

That said, most establishments here tend to have push/pull handles or sliding doors, doing away entirely with the notion of something you "twist."

skoob• 13 years ago

Having a disability doesn't necessarily mean that the person is wheelchair bound.

protomyth6• 13 years ago

Ramps are cool (many uses). Changing door knobs seems a bit problematic. You are trading one problem (disabled access) for a couple of other problems (children, large pets, its a hook). If they could come up with something that had the ease but did not enable the problems then cool.

One of the big drivers of people getting cranky about accessibility is the number of lawsuits brought (USA), not to fix things but by vulture lawyers. It is a nice little scam especially when folks think they are complying with the law.

DanBC6• 13 years ago

If you ever need to fit anti-ligature door furniture please avoid the conical style handles.

The worst I've used was like this, but without the cutaways. http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2013/10/17/11244306/CRX-K-NEWx5...

Really hard to use. Even for people with good hands who are not off their faces on meds.

Vancouver’s ban on the doorknob

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