New locking technologies continue to find their way into
mainstream applications that we encounter during our daily course of
activities. One such application involves the use of shared restrooms typically
found in college dorms, medical facilities, and schools. The fact is, shared restrooms are becoming
increasingly popular in new construction as the cost of installing bathrooms
can be steep. For plumbing alone, the national average cost for commercial
construction ranges from $6 per square foot to more than $8 per square foot,
depending on the building type and location and including materials and labor.
What it doesn’t include is the cost of framing walls, drywall, fixtures, tiling
and/or other finish work. Building one restroom for every two rooms rather than
one-to-one, building owners can cut these costs in half and in a multi-story
building, those savings can be significant.
However, there are a couple of challenges associated with
this type of restroom setup that may give building managers pause. Ensuring the
privacy and safety of those who enter the restroom is foremost among these
challenges. This requires the person to make sure all entrances to the restroom
are locked upon entering, which leads to the second challenge – ensuring all
doors are unlocked when a person exits the restroom to provide free access for
all connected rooms.
When a restroom door is locked from the inside, the natural
assumption is that it is in use. If it remains locked for a lengthy period of
time, an individual from one adjacent room must visit the other room to see if
the restroom is in fact still occupied or whether the last user forgot to
unlock one of the doors. This can be time-consuming and can also add another
layer of privacy concerns, particularly in nursing home or medical facility
applications. Worse yet, is if all doors are accidentally locked no one will be
able to access the restroom until a key-holder arrives – a poor use of manpower
and operating overhead.
To continue reading, click Locking
Technology for the Bathroom.
