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✳04 / 04 · Commercial service
Panic hardware for commercial exits, installed and adjusted to release under pressure.
- Category
- Commercial
- Availability
- 24/7
- Coverage
- 10 GTA cities
- The visit
- 4 steps
✳On this page
What this actually involves
A push bar lets anyone leave through a locked door with a single push in the direction they are already moving, which is why exits serving larger occupant loads generally require one. We install the bar, set the operating force, and confirm it releases cleanly from anywhere along its length. On fire-rated doors the hardware cannot be held open mechanically, so those get electric dogging.
Hardware for the worst minute a building can have
A push bar exists so that anyone — panicked, in the dark, in a crowd — can leave through a locked door with a single push in the direction they are already moving. No knob to find, no key to turn, no knowledge required. That is why exit-device requirements attach to assembly spaces and higher-occupancy commercial doors: in an emergency, the door has to work for the person who has never used it. We install the bar, set its operating force, and confirm it releases cleanly from anywhere along its length — because a bar that only releases at the centre has failed its one job.
Fire doors, dogging, and staying legal
Many exit doors need to stand unlocked through business hours, which is what dogging is for — holding the latch retracted so the door swings free. On a fire-rated door, mechanical dogging is not permitted: the door must be able to latch when it matters, so those doors take electric dogging that releases on alarm. Inspectors look for exactly this. We fit what your door's rating requires, keep exterior key access working where you want it, and leave the exit both compliant and convenient — the pairing that badly chosen hardware forces you to trade off.
How the visit goes
Start to finish, so nothing on the day is a surprise.
- Step 01
Assess the exit and its rating
Door construction, fire rating, traffic, and what the exit serves — the facts that decide the device and the dogging.
- Step 02
Fit the device
The bar mounted at the correct height, spanning enough of the door width to catch a push wherever it lands.
- Step 03
Set the operating force
Release effort set within the limits that apply to your door, including the lower threshold where the exit is on an accessible route.
- Step 04
Test the full stroke
Released from the ends, the middle, low and high — and on fire-rated doors, confirmed to latch when the dogging releases.
What to expect
Bar spans at least half the door width, so it releases wherever a person hits it in the dark
Operating force set within the 15 lb limit, and to the lower 5 lb figure where the exit is on an accessible route
Fire-rated doors get electric dogging — mechanical dogging is not permitted on a fire door, and inspectors look for it
Asked before calling
The questions this job actually gets, answered the way they would be on the phone.
It depends on what the door serves and how many people it serves — occupancy thresholds and use are code questions we assess per door rather than answer generically. Call with the building type and door, and you will get a straight answer about what applies to it.
Where we go
Commercial work is mobile across the GTA — the technician and the equipment come to you, 24/7. Based at 470 N Rivermede Rd, Vaughan.
- Toronto
- Vaughan
- Markham
- Brampton
- Mississauga
- Richmond Hill
- Scarborough
- Pickering
- Ajax
- Oshawa
More commercial work
Not the job you have? The rest of what we do on this side of the trade — every one of them its own page, written the same way.
Related reading
The journal covers this side of the trade in depth — how things fail, what they cost you when they do, and what to check before calling anyone at all.
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The other doors
Everything LAK does sits in one of these: your car, your bike, your home or your business.
- (01)Emergency4 services
- (02)Automotive7 services
- (03)Motorcycle4 services
- (04)Residential4 services
- (05)Commercial4 services