The doors in our buildings are the one thing we ALL touch every day – a physical barrier there to secure and keep us safe. However, now touching that door poses a potential risk.

Building managers and owners need to balance the needs of security and safety in terms of fire and smoke along with minimising the transference of infection through ‘touch’, e.g., Coronavirus,
SARS and MERS.

Often, there will be multiple potential options for achieving this and these need to be balanced against budget, practicality, door type and frequency of use.

In order to simplify this selection process, we have produced a flow chart of questions which should guide the reader to the relevant sections of this document.

The guide has been written so as to ‘break down’ the solutions from the utopian solution of a door which automatically opens and closes itself, through to a door for which ‘touch’ is unavoidable and, in each case, highlights a range of solutions to consider.