And The Answer Is:
Well first, let’s take another look at the door.
The pic was taken from the inside of the room and the door opens out. The guys who will be working inside the room requested a split or’ Dutch’ door so that they could still talk to people who walk up to the door without them bringing dirt and mud into the room.
So what exactly is that hydraulic door closing mechanism doing on the top half of the door?
Even with the thing adjusted all the way down, a person still needs to force it to even get it to open and when the top half is not connected to the bottom half, it swings shut rather quickly and with a resounding bang. Also, it will not remain open unless we screw something like an eyebolt into the wall next to it and then another bolt holding some type of hook to connect to the latch.
The guy who installed the door has basically just defeated the purpose of having a split door. The mechanism was actually supposed to be mounted on the bottom half of the door between the door and the doorframe. He tossed out the parts needed to make that connection and fabbed up a special piece so that he could mount it the way he did. He probably felt pretty darn intelligent when he was done too.
From what I have heard bandied about the office, we have had two accidents with this particular door already: the first one was a hand that got caught in the fast closing upper part of the door and the other happened after someone was playing with the latch that connects the two halves together while yakking and forgot that they hadn’t re-secured the two halves. Short story even shorter, busted lip when the bottom half opened but the top half didn’t. Not only didn’t the top half open, it didn’t budge due to the strength of the closing mechanism.
I would like to thank everyone who sent in their guess. I got to talk to RNS readers, most of whom I didn’t know, and that is always great.
You all have a good weekend. Picture me at the range.