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Door Council focused on an upcoming edit to an acoustical standard during the AAMA Summer Conference in June. The group also heard reports from task groups and committees about some recently updated door standards, and some that are on their way to getting new touches. This work will continue in October at the Fall Conference in Greenville, SC.

Acoustical Standard Update on Horizon

ASTM activity is spurring a look at the AAMA acoustical standard and a new task group is gearing up to revise AAMA 1801-13, Voluntary Specification for Acoustical Ratings of Exterior Windows, Doors, Skylights and Glazed Wall Sections. After a preliminary review of foundational documents and the activities of ASTM to update one of them, the new Door Council’s Side Hinged Door Acoustical Standards Review Work Group (chair: Scott Warner [Intertek] was disbanded in favor of a more wide-reaching task group to explore the issues involved. A new AAMA 1801 Task Group, a joint task group under the Architectural Window and Residential Window councils, will henceforth take up concerns for more substantive attention to acoustic transmission through doors. This is also the focus of ASTM work group WK58434, initiated this past March and chaired by Eric Miller (ATI), which is focusing on the current version of ASTM E90, Standard Test Method for Laboratory Measurement of Airborne Sound Transmission Loss of Building Partitions and Elements – a foundational document for AAMA 1801.

“The current version [of E90] does not include windows in section 7. Section 7.3 on operable door systems is not described appropriately,” ASTM states. “The aging for gypsum board panels was removed from E90 and needs to be reinserted with a 24-hour requirement. Section A1.16 on Doors needs to be modified to be compatible with another ASTM door standard. Section A1.17 on windows needs to be modified to be compatible with another ASTM standard on windows.” One of the key additional standards referenced is ASTM E1425-14, Standard Practice for Determining the Acoustical Performance of Windows, Doors, Skylight, and Glazed Wall Systems.

The AAMA task group has previously noted that AAMA 1801 – which is due for an update – needs to be clarified regarding the impact of air infiltration on acoustical performance as well as latching force as it relates to air infiltration. Congruity with AAMA TIR-A1-15, Sound Control for Fenestration Products, should also be ensured.

Updated Door Specifications Published

The Side Hinged Door Auxiliary Test Method Task Group (chair: Chad Elbert [Jeld-Wen]) announces that newly updated versions of AAMA 920, Specification for Operating Cycle Performance of Side-Hinged Exterior Door Systems, and AAMA 925, Specification for Determining the Vertical Loading Resistance of Side-Hinged Door Leaves, have been published.

The task group further reports that balloting continues on the revised AAMA 1304, Voluntary Specification for Forced-Entry Resistance of Side-Hinged Door Systems. Ballot results were due August 17 and a conference call was to be convened to discuss ballot comments. It was noted that AAMA 1304 will not be referenced in NAFS 2017.

Multi-Panel Door Task Group Looks at Existential issues

The Multi-Panel Door Testing for Certification Task Group is addressing an improved definition of its purpose and scope and is revising its management. A review of the group’s scope attempted to answer questions of whether the scope was to address doors not covered under NAFS, which has been a moving target as the content for NAFS-17 has been under development. The original intent was to create guidelines for qualifying door systems at sizes larger than tested, and/or for multi-panel door systems not currently covered under NAFS (EG: bi-fold, multi-slide, lift-and-slide, etc.), with specific attention to sliding glass doors. The group changed the scope to that of developing “a voluntary performance rating system for multi-system to rate a quantity of panels greater than tested, with no individual panel exceeding the original panel size.” To guide the effort, Steve Strawn (Jeld-Wen) replaces Jim Blakely (UL).