Vancouver’s ban on the doorknob | Hacker News Reader

Vancouver’s ban on the doorknob

vancouversun.com

32 pointssethbannon77 comments

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.

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.

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

Linkbait.

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

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.

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."

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

Really? I had no idea.

I was using the example as an extreme. It's curious to me that in most debates, you'll find no shortage of contrarians.

More to the point: Ramp access and automatic doors are viable, proven improvements to accessibility. Levers? No so much.

I suppose I ought to re-iterate why I find the notion that a lever-operated door to be "more accessible" than a door knob suspect, particularly if you consider people with carpal tunnel, other wrist injuries, or osteoarthritis in their digits (particularly thumbs). In these populations, wrist movements of any kind may be painful or impossible. To that end, I would believe that simple handle-operated doors that require push/pull only access ought to be far more accessible.

But again, automatic doors are something of a comparative panacea regardless of the disability. If you can approach the door or push a button, you can gain access to the structure.

So what was your point again?

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.

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.

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

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.

You could spin this as safety as well as accessibility. E.g., if an older person is alone in the home and something happens. If the older person is a visitor, you might not change out the handles for them, but their safety is impacted if they can't open the doors.

Other safety/accessibility regulations cover the width of doorways and the presence and specific design elements of handrails, even in private dwellings. (E.g., the handrail must be not too skinny and not too fat, and have parts on the end that turn inward and meet the wall.)

There are a lot of such codes. Some of them I only know about because I built a home addition in California. Once you know about them, you start noticing these design elements on all the built structures around you.

I'm not disagreeing with what you wrote! (I notice that you got a downvote, which seems weird.). Just pondering the distinction between safety and accessibility, and how you'd draw that line, and trying to think of related examples of regulations that pertain to private residences.

I use to live in a home where the front door opened up into a staircase which went to the living area, the first floor was commercial space, not residential. What would this hypothetical elderly visitor do then?

I think accessibility is fine and dandy in public spaces, but the line between accessibility and safety becomes quite clear when you begin considering private residences. There are all manner of perfectly normal objects, appliances, and situations that can become dangerous in hypothetical situations involving disabled visitors. Hell, just look at bathtubs: generally considered benign, but potential deathtraps for hypothetical elderly visitors. Nobody is likely to replace their bathtub with a no-slip walk-in bathtub just because an elderly person is visiting, should we mandate that all new structures be build with walk-in tubs?

In the context of private residences, safety issues are ones that really present an equal-opportunity risk. Mandating circuit breakers is a clear-cut example of a safety issue, not an accessibility issue. Something that is done solely for the sake of the disabled is a clear-cut accessibility issue. Stair lifts, ramps, and accessible nobs are all accessibility issues. They do nothing for the safety of the general population; they should not be framed as safety issues.

I don't know the intricacies of Canadian code enforcement, but in the US building codes for private homes are only relevant at a few points: New construction, substantial renovation, certain not-wholly-private use cases, and certain types of financing when buying. New construction is where it's strictest.

In a case like this, your contractor may have to install handles to pass inspection, but nothing stops you from changing them out for knobs if you want to.

"In September, Vancouver council adopted new amendments to its building code, effective next March, that, among other things, will require lever handles on all doors and lever faucets in all new housing construction."

...

"Will Johnston, the former Vancouver chief building inspector who wrote the changes in consultation with the building industry, doesn’t see this as the inevitable death of the doorknob because the rules aren’t retroactive. People can also still buy doorknobs and put them back on lever handle-equipped houses."

So why is this a 1984-esque rights trampling? New houses have to have lever handles. I'm sure they also have to be wired safely. Why should someone who is disabled only have a subset of houses to choose from?

Honest question: Should all new private residences be required to have ramps or elevators to be wheelchair accessible? If not, where do you draw the line?

I think you could do a cost/benefit analysis on this sort of thing. How much cost does it add to a project and how much space does it take up vs. how many people benefit and what's the scale of the benefit? In the case of lever door handles or something like returns on stair railings, it's not very expensive and provides a benefit in accessibility or safety.

On the other hand ramps are fairly expensive (thousands of dollars to hire a contractor to build one) and take up a lot of room (usually height:length of 1:12 or 1:16, not counting landings). Elevators are even more expensive (tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars plus maintenance) and take up a fair amount of room.

I'd happily force anyone building > X new dwellings to make sure that Y% of those are wheelchair accessible, or to have other accessible features.

How do you feel about low-flow toilets.

What's your question, exactly? Coercion and effect aren't intrinsically connected. Something that has a good effect might still not be worth the coercion; something coerced with the best of intentions might still not have a good effect.

Twenty years ago low flow toilets were more evidence of the heavy-handed iron fist of the Orwellian state into our every day lives.

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.

The argument in the article is that it is even better yet if construction can be made so that it benefits everyone without being a hindrance to anyone else. For example, many stores don't have ramps or stairs -- the store floor is at parking-lot / sidewalk level.

If lever handles were actually preferred by everybody, then there would be no need for this legislation. Is it really a great injustice in society that somebody with poor hand dexterity might have to replace doorknobs in a newly purchased home? An injustice so great that we must mandate poor-dexterity accessible handles in all new construction?

Here is an idea: if lever style handles are a medical necessity for somebody, let those devices be provided for them by the state, as other medical necessities are in Canada. What's next, installing stair lifts in every home on the off chance that an elderly person might move in? Banning stairs and requiring all new homes to have elevators instead? Are we going to start requiring that all homes that have raised floors in some rooms come with ramps pre-installed?

From my understanding, the overall idea from the "inclusive" standardization process is if there is a choice between two things that are otherwise functionally and cost equivalent (or comparable), the inclusive item is what should be in the standard. Keep in mind that housing construction standards already have things like door height, door knob height, door width, stair tread rise/run ratios, etc. And the purpose of including new house construction in some of the standards, isn't for the benefit of the current home purchaser, but for the benefit of future owners of the dwelling, so that they have a greater selection of housing to choose from that doesn't require major retrofitting after purchase.

And to further address the "banning stairs and requiring elevators" part of your comment, that falls under the Reductio ad absurdum informal logical fallacy -- that is, it isn't functionally / cost equivalent. However, I think you will notice that not to many new houses are built with only ladders connecting the various floors instead of stairs. Probably due to the current building standards.

> Probably due to the current building standards.

No, probably because consumers demand stairs. There are plenty of places with very lax building codes; do you really think that ladders to get to the second floor are common in those places? Damn near nobody is interested in a house that forces you to climb a ladder to reach your kitchen, the absence of such houses isn't creditable to people in wheelchairs. You are the one reducing this conversation to the absurd.

How "inclusive by default" are we suppose to be? Every few months you hear a story about firefighters cutting another fat person out of their own house, maybe we should double all door widths?

Maybe we should ban glass coffee tables and make them all out of plexiglass instead, in case anyone with vertigo wants one. That would be pretty "functionally and cost equivalent".

The only reason you think that is more absurd than replacing doorknobs is because I thought of it instead of you, and because I thought of it for the sole purpose of mocking it.

> Maybe we should ban glass coffee tables and make them all out of plexiglass instead, in case anyone with vertigo wants one. That would be pretty "functionally and cost equivalent".

If you're making and selling coffee tables to the public you can't make it from any old glass - it needs to be glass that meets certain standards and is tempered.

No one is saying that people who like door knobs must not have them - you can fit them once you've bought your house.

The fact that you'd prefer to push the work of replacing door knobs onto the people who need the functionality of levers, rather than onto the people who prefer the aesthetics of knobs, is a clear inherent bias against those with accessibility needs.

> "The fact that you'd prefer to push the work of replacing door knobs onto the people who need the functionality of levers, rather than onto the people who prefer the aesthetics of knobs, is a clear inherent bias against those with accessibility needs."

Or, you know, a clear bias towards rejecting emotion filled argument. I'm not going to arrest common sense just because a group of people that I am suppose to have sympathy for are involved. If only a minority of the population needs something, let that something be provided for that minority of the population. Hell, have the state pay for the purchase and installation of lever handles for anybody who has a medical need for them, other sorts of medical needs and accommodations are taken care of on an individual basis, why should this one be different?

Elderly person needs some pills? Canada can hook them up with that. Elderly person needs a walker? Canada can hook them up with that. Elderly person needs lever door handles? ....

(By the way, tempered glass can still do some damage to you, don't be lured into a false sense of security with it. I sliced my index finger open quite nicely a few years ago after my car was broken into. It didn't require stitches, but the scar is still visible. Plexiglass would almost certainly be safer.)

I've never seen a glass coffee table come as part of a house construction, therefore it wouldn't be included in any type of building code.

However, I do see what you are trying to get at. The basic issue is what is the thresholds of affected people needed before something should be included in a public standard? If something is unusable for, say, 20% of the population, then it should be modified for inclusion. If it only affects .0000001% of the population, then it probably isn't worth worrying about. And cost / aesthetics / personal preferences should factor in, based on how many people are affected -- that is, the fewer that would benefit from an inclusion rule, the more other factors (such as cost, or design considerations, etc) should weigh in against inclusion. And if half the population is affected, then that would put more weight on inclusion and less on cost.

Then there is the threshold of public buildings vs. new construction for private residences. As mentioned previously, the purpose of including residences in the inclusion laws (and actually all building codes) isn't for the current owner, but for the benefit of future owners and their visitors. Again, the percentage of the population that would benefit from a particular building code can weigh in on how much other factors are considered that would weigh in against the code. Which is why door handles are specified to be at a specific height, so that it is usable for the greatest range of the population.

Of course, the whole door knob vs. lever thing can be retrofitted without changing the door hardware -- someone just needs to invent a clamp-on device that would add a lever to an existing knob.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

http://brinksppr.com/

So patent the knob to lever transformer thingy.

It's already been done. https://www.ncmedical.com/item_187.html

Damn you North Coast Medical - I thought I was rich, rich I tells ya!

Wouldn't you just need a lever with a C shape that snaps of the existing knob with inner padding for grip and different handles?

Grips wear out... Just have two holes on the lever which can be used for drilling pilot holes and then screw in 2 screws.

Just take some clamps used for woodworking and slap those on. Some of those come with racketing mechanisms and can hold for very long periods of time (often necessary, since sometimes people clamp wood into place for months at a time).

I'd think the grips would wear out due to friction which should be minimal in what I'm thinking. Something that is a no tool install would sell much better.

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.

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.

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.

With an aging population, there's going to be a lot more people who have trouble with doorknobs (due to common arthritis and other impairments) than those who have kids young enough to be stumped by doorknobs but not levers (say 3-5 years old) or dogs who turn lever handles. (So maybe 10% of homes.) It's not a "few" people who have trouble with doorknobs - it's probably close to 20-30% of your overall population and maybe 30-40% of households.

E.g. it's about 1 in 5 Americans who are impacted by arthritis (of some form), plus you have people with repetitive strain injury and other non-arthritic conditions who will also benefit from lever handles. Compare that to the relatively small fraction of people in wheelchairs and this seems like a no-brainer compared to ramps.

Old people have trouble with falls too. Maybe we should ban slick bathtubs, tile floors, and raised floors.

Floors and their traction level are in fact already regulated as part of ADA for many buildings. And there's tons of building codes regarding your residential bathroom for similar safety issues - minimum clearances, height of fixtures, anti-scalding valves, types of glass.

As others have pointed out, the entire building code is basically a balance between cost and safety. Anything having to do with egress tends to get extra attention, as well. If there was a zero-cost way to prevent slips and falls, it might well end up in the building code, yes.

>> Maybe we should ban slick bathtubs, tile floors, and raised floors.

You can usually look on the box and find the coefficient of friction (COF) for any floor tile you buy. OSHA has requirements for what COF is appropriate for various uses (dry and flat or wet and sloped, for example). It wouldn't surprise me if that sort of thing eventually makes it into the residential building code.

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

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.

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.

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?

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...)

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

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

>> 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.

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

True, but having something that is metal and hook-shaped attached to every door seems like a poor idea.

Unless you're physically disabled, in which case it seems like a great idea.

Or have small children, in which case it's a horrible idea

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.

I think the lanyard / key chain combo sounds great on paper, but lacks some basic safety features. Also, fellow workers unconscious on the floor with head wounds should be a red flag that some action is needed. We live in an imperfect world.

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

Well, it has been 21 years now and calling the thing designed might be a little much. It was pretty much a long, thick shoe string with a keyring and attachment for our id. It was a bit of a summer from hell and that incident should have been the warning to run for it. Sadly, I was young and stubborn and clearly the head injury affected my decisions for the rest of the summer. :)

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"

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.

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

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

Only if you're tall enough.

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

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

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

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

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.

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