School Door Was Falling Apart From a Broken Hinge Reinforcement: ABH A571HD Continuous Hinge, Aventura

Not always. At an Aventura school, the bottom hinge broke from the frame and the hinge reinforcement was broken too. Instead of replacing the door frame and the hinges, I installed a continuous hinge and through-bolted it to the door. The through-bolts reinforce the hinge, and that is how I saved the school from replacing the frame.

A continuous hinge is one long hinge that runs the full height of the door. Some people call it a piano hinge. On the Aventura school door, I installed an ABH A571HD heavy-duty full-surface geared continuous hinge, 83 inches long, and through-bolted it as the manufacturer's instructions call for on that door.

Through-bolts pass all the way through the door instead of only biting into the surface. I use them to reinforce the hinge to the door. On this school job the hinge reinforcement was broken, so through-bolting the continuous hinge is what let me fix the door without replacing the door frame.

The facility manager at this school called it a safety hazard and asked me to fix it as soon as possible. When I got there, the bottom hinge had broken from the frame and the door was almost falling apart. On a door students go through hundreds of times a day, I didn't want to leave it like that.

This one took an hour and a half. That covered assessing the issue, taking the door down, removing the old hinges, installing the continuous hinge, and tightening the lock hardware, the panic device, and the door closer, so everything on the door worked right when I left.

Yes. On this school door I tightened the lock hardware, the panic device, and the door closer, and I didn't charge for it. It's a high-traffic door, so it has to be well maintained. The invoice was only for the continuous hinge and the installation.