The back door at Jersey Mike's in Lake Geneva let staff out but had no exit device on it and no controlled way in. We fitted a panic bar across the inside of the leaf and a keyed lever with a cylinder outside, and renewed the strike so the door latches properly when it shuts.
There is a specific problem with a staff-only door, and it is not that the lock is too weak or too strong. It is that the door has to do two opposite things at once: let anyone inside the building out immediately, and let almost nobody in from the street.
A plain lever cannot do both. So the door ends up either propped or left unlocked so that people can get out at the end of a shift, and the back of the building - the part nobody watches - is the way in. That is the situation an exit device exists to end.
A back door that staff could not exit cleanly
The rear door opened onto the store room and out to the car park. It had a lever handle with a latch, which does release the door, but it releases it on a turn of the hand - and it releases it for whoever is standing on the other side too.
That is the shape of the risk here. The door works well enough that it never gets reported, so it is used hundreds of times a week by people carrying trays, boxes and rubbish bags, on a route where a free hand is not always available.
Exit in one movement, entry on a key
The two halves of this job solve each other. Inside, a panic bar releases the door under a push across the whole leaf, so leaving does not depend on finding a handle in the dark or with full hands.
Outside, the door carries a lever with a key cylinder. That turns the opening into controlled entry without touching the egress side: nobody is ever locked in, and the back door is no longer an open invitation at the end of the evening.
- Unrestricted exit from inside, under a push anywhere on the bar.
- Entry from the car park only on a key.
- A renewed strike at the frame, so the door actually latches when it swings shut.
- The old lock case closed out of the leaf so the door keeps its strength.
What was fitted
A rim exit device across the inside face, a keyed lever with a cylinder on the outside, a strike at the frame and a plate closing the old lock case out of the door edge. The old furniture came out first, and the leaf was bored and pocketed to take the new case.
The part that decides whether any of it works is the strike. A bar that does not line up with its strike leaves a door that looks secure and is not, so the alignment was set with the door shut and latched.
The premises and the account
The job was at Jersey Mike's Subs, 88 E Geneva Square, Lake Geneva, WI 53147, and it is a commercial account rather than a one-off call-out.
Lake Geneva is on the Wisconsin side of our service area and the closest commercial centre to our own base, so it is a market we know well. The units around the square are restaurants, retail and seasonal property, and the pattern that repeats is the one this page describes: a busy front door that gets all the attention, and a rear door that gets used more and inspected less.