A pet bug bear of mine is seeing a consultant dictate that ALL access control doors MUST be fail safe & have a fire trip to unlock the door in the event of a fire alarm.
In most cases this is incorrect and leads to a lower level of security, exposing the premises to intrusion. For example a potential intruder can easily set of a fire alarm in one part of a building to gain entry to another part when the fire trip is activated.
If a door is locked with an electric mortise lock or strike but has a free handle exit, i.e. no exit button or exit card reader, then the door can usually be configured fail secure and have no fire trip signal. This configuration allows users to exit in any emergency situation but prevents re-entry by unauthorised persons. An authorised cardholder can re-enter as normal at any time. Free handle fail secure doors should NOT be connected to a fire trip so that they will work correctly at all times even during a fire trip situation.
A fail secure configuration also has the advantage of keeping the door locked (preventing entry) and protecting the building/room in the event of a system failure or malicious attack on cables or other parts of the system. Another bonus when using fail secure locks is that normally the daily power consumption will be much lower.
It is important to note that some free handle doors should be configured fail safe. An example of this is when re-entry to a level of a building is required in the event of a fire alarm i.e. on every fourth level of a high rise.