44. Hotel and Office Locks.—The purpose and use of master-keyed locks has already been explained, but the employment of such locks in large groups, as in the equipment of hotels and office buildings, requires further discussion. The term corridor door designates the entrance from a corridor or a hallway to a bedroom or an office, while communicating doors are those between adjoining rooms. Frequently, these doors are double, and are then known as twin doors, while the term closet doors is self-explanatory. Each of these doors requires a knob lock; that is, a lock having the latch bolt operated by the knob and the dead bolt operated by a key. Sometimes, in the case of locks on closet doors, the dead bolt on communicating-door locks is omitted, and a thumb bolt substituted. While all of the locks thus far enumerated are used in hotels, and most of them in office buildings, technically speaking, a hotel lock is a master-keyed knob lock for doors from the corridor to bedrooms, while an office lock is an inverted lock; that is, a lock with the keyhole above the knob. These latter locks are usually master-keyed, especially for the doors from the corridor to the office. Such locks as these may be master-keyed on any of the systems, as previously explained. For office work, a small key is desirable, so that cylinder locks are ordinarily employed, as the key for the operation of such locks may be conveniently carried. For hotels, however, a high-grade lever-tumbler lock with round, substantial keys is desirable, because the keys are liable to hard usage, and should not be convenient to carry in the pocket.
Hotel keys vary widely in arrangement, as well as in size, quality, and price. The kind of action, or mechanism, to be adopted in a hotel lock is frequently determined by the preference and experience of the hotel manager, and it is desirable that he should be consulted in advance; but the location and use of each door should be considered in the selection of the locks for this character of building. It will thus be seen that the subject of hardware for a hotel is one that requires the most careful consideration of the architect.
The grouping of locks in a hotel should be studied, and, usually, the best plan in large hotels is to group all of the locks on each floor under one master key and to provide a different master key for each floor, care being taken to limit the issue of master keys to the smallest possible number of responsible persons. In some cases, a grand master key is also provided that will open all the locks on every floor. This arrangement of the locks entails an additional expense, and also has the disadvantage that, in case the grand master key is lost, all of the locks controlled by it should at once be set to a new combination, in order to prevent access by the person into whose hands the key has fallen. This procedure is both troublesome and expensive.
Fig. 49
The foregoing remarks relating to hotel locks apply equally to office locks, especially as to the arrangement for the operation with the master key. In other respects, however, the locks for an office building differ considerably from those used in hotels, for a hotel lock must secure the door both when the room is occupied and when it is not, whereas an office lock is used chiefly to secure it when not occupied. In consequence of this, certain differences in action are employed. All office locks have a latch bolt that is operated by the knob from both sides and yet permits free ingress and egress. Various methods, however, are employed to lock the door against ingress except by means of a key. Sometimes this is accomplished by means of a separate dead bolt operated by a master key from either side; in other cases it is accomplished by a latch bolt only, by providing the latter with a stop-work like a front-door lock. By this arrangement, the outer knob may be stopped so that the latch bolt cannot be operated from the exterior except by the key; and, again, the latch bolt may be dead-locked from the outside by the key. The choice of these arrangements is a matter of personal preference.
45. Store-Door Trim.—The technical term store-door lock originally designated a heavy rim or mortise dead lock, but is now applied to a combined lock and latch, the former being operated by a key from either side, and the latter by a thumb piece located above the pull handle. Such locks are made in a large variety of sizes and styles, the best being of the cylinder type, as shown in [Fig. 49]. In this lock, the latch is operated by the thumb piece during the day, while the dead latch secures the door at night.
Plates and handles for the combined store-door lock and latch are also made in many sizes and styles, from the plain rectangular type to the most ornamental forms. Such trim offers good opportunity for effective decoration, and no embellishment is so effective for a store’s entrance door as a pair of handsome plates and handles of appropriate design. For such trim, it is not uncommon to provide an outlay of from $25 to $30 per door. Some of the more elaborate store-door handles are illustrated in Figs. [50] and [51]. The trim illustrated in these plates is very carefully selected by the architect to match the style of architecture in which the building is designed, and the finish is selected with as much care.
46. Padlocks.—While padlocks are not ordinarily included in builders’ hardware, they are extensively used for factories, stables, and other buildings of this character; thus some care should be taken in their selection. Padlocks are made in a great variety of sizes, styles, and qualities, and retail at prices ranging from 10 cents, or less, to $5. Where these locks are exposed to moisture or to the weather, they should be of bronze or of brass, with all of the interior construction of the same material. If required for great security, that is, for places where they are likely to be subjected to violence, they should be very heavy, and preferably provided with steel shackles. Padlocks constructed on the cylinder-lock principle may be obtained, and should always be used where a series of locks that are operated by separate keys and controlled by a master key is employed. Ordinarily, a selection of padlocks should be made only after an inspection of the actual samples, and not according to catalog representations.
