Gentlemen,

I received a call from a client yesterday regarding testing of their lift & slide doors. They presented me with a state approval from a competitor for a similar door to theirs. They asked me if they were to test the same door configuration tested by this other company, could they get the same approved additional configurations in that company’s approval. From the approval’s evaluation report, it is evident that one configuration was tested. That configuration was a 4-panel XXXO sliding door with a left side pocket and meeting stile condition. The approval shows every configuration of 1, 2, 3 & 4 panel doors possible as applicable based on that one configuration, half of which have a jamb locking stile (not tested).

My experience shows that to get every sliding door configuration in an approval, you must test every stile condition which typically includes meeting stile, interlock stile, pocket stile and jamb stile. This approval shows no jamb stile condition to have been tested.

The approval number is 11328. The manufacturer is Weiland Sliding Doors, Inc. The evaluation engineer is Kristina Daugherty.

The approval is an HVHZ impact approval.

I must request that this approval be revisited to determine if all aspects of the door shown in the approval can be backed up by a test. If not, I must request that the approval be pulled. Note that if the engineer is trying to justify the jamb stile off some form of engineering, she is wrong in doing so. An impact jamb lock stile cannot be compared to a meeting stile tested considering the meeting stile is a spanning flexible member that can easily recoil upon impact while a jamb lock stile is rigidly secured to the jamb via a single lock point that can fail upon impact and thus fail the door seals.

Note that Dade County has always required that every stile condition be impacted and tested with sliding doors.

Please tell me what happens in a case like this and tell me if there is something further I must do to follow up. I would like to see this approval be brought up in front of the POC ASAP for review.

Regards,

Warren Schaefer