Door Component Interchangeability Task Group Holds First Meeting

The American Architectural Manufacturers Association's (AAMA) door component interchangeability task group, chaired by Endura's Mark Fortun, held its first meeting this week at the association's national conference in San Antonio. Replacing a previous group, the door component sub-task group, the group was formed to develop a guideline for addressing components used in side-hinged doors. (CLICK HERE for related story.)

The group held its first meeting in Chicago in July, and, in addition, had a full-day meeting scheduled for today, September 25.

"We're trying to accelerate a document addressing components in side-hinged doors," said Fortun, who, during the meeting, was joined by Rich Biscoe of Architectural Testing Inc. as vice-chair.

Fortun spent much of the meeting updating those unable to attend the Chicago meeting on the progress of the group and what occurred at that meeting.

"We had a pretty good cross-section of entire system makers and pre-hangers," he said.

While the group is only attempting to develop a guideline, the question right now, Fortuna said, is whether developing a guideline of this sort is possible.

Likewise, AAMA has invited both the Window and Door Manufacturers Association (WDMA) and the Association of Millwork Distributors (AMD) to work on the guideline with them. Both Rick Perry of the WDMA and Jeff Burton of AMD were in attendance at the meeting.

Currently, the group intends that the guideline will provide instructions for testing components for air/water/structural performance, but Fortun admitted there is still much to be done.

"There are a lot of unknowns," he said, "but I think at least there's been a concerted industry-wide effort to look at it."

Need more info and analysis about the issues?
CLICK HERE to subscribe to DWM magazine.