My theory: the door is kept open by springs so that you never get trapped inside. Then, when it closes, it takes a lot of force to keep it down.

A regular door can be destroyed by a regular human, therefore an animatronic would go through it as if it were wet tissue paper

Actually, from a safety perspective this is genius. If the power runs out, and this was NOT a universe where murderous robots haunted by the ghosts of children weren’t murdering you, the doors staying open without power is very safe and genius. The doors are obviously very heavy. They make a loud thud when closing and are probably thick steel slabs. You would get crushed and pinned very easily if the door closes on you if the power runs out. Likewise, if someone does get crushed and the button stops working then you can disconnect power to the doors to open them instead. Also, it prevents people from getting trapped inside. If the doors closed when power runs out, then suddenly the night guard is just locked inside the office in a rundown building until god knows when. Does someone come for morning and afternoon shifts to keep watch? We don’t know. And there seems to be a lack of proper ventilation in the room too, only a fan that circulates the air, which means if power ran out and you were trapped in the room you might eventually suffocate (if the room is airtight), or at the very least start to cook like a chicken in an oven because the fan turns off.

I think it's springs and electromagnets. Door is held up with springs, and an electromagnetic pulls it down. Your pulley theory is really interesting though. Also the robots would tear through a normal door like a wet paper bag. Hence the blast doors, regardless of space. It probably is a fire escape thing. Unintentional foreshadowing of the sheer amount of fire in subsequent games.

It's so you can get out. Think about it. If a giant, heavy door slams closed when the power goes off, anyone inside the room is trapped in there, unable to open it. However, if the door is designed to automatically open when power is lost, then they can escape. It's just that there's the complication of "That door is the only thing between you and the killer robot bear" that makes escape a non-starter.

I always just assumed it was a hydraulic/spring system. Like the door is slammed shut by heavy hydraulics and then when the hydraulics are turned off the springs are able to contract pulling the doors back up, I always just hand waved it away as a safety precaution so that the guard wouldn't get trapped in the case of an emergency cause there's no emergency exit from the office

My theory is that the doors require power to stay open because of safety. If kids are going to be running around in the building, they’re going to want to explore. If the power were to go out right when a kid, or really anyone, was under the door, then it wouldn’t end well. The door staying open during a power outage would be safer for people in the daytime. Yes, if someone were to cut power to the building at night then the security guard wouldn’t be very safe from robbers but then again has Fazbear Entertainment ever made a smart decision?

they could have probably just made the doors slide sideways instead of making slide move up and down, that way you could just slide the door open whenever you want and it would still be able to open during emergencies (not sure how exactly that would implemented tho)

You mentioned fire safety as the reason for the doors being forced open, but funnily enough most fire safety doors and windows are designed to slam shut in the case of a fire, needing to be opened manually. This is because it is a very effective way of containing a fire, not giving it excess oxygen to expand rapidly and securing parts of the building that are behind the doors. There are cases where a fire extinguished itself by running out of oxygen before the fire department even arrived thanks to well designed fire safety doors.

Personal theory: The whole FNAF 1 location is an intentionally designed death trap. It’s the only location in the series where nightguards are routinely being attacked and dying and this is known by the few employees. William is using it to kill guards and study them for remnant experiments(Phone Guy is probably being blackmailed with threats of being framed given that William previously most likely framed Henry).

My theory before watching: The door closes when it's powered (evidenced by the door being closed consuming your power) so the door is probably held open by something like a spring mechanism or whatever that needs mechanical power to overcome in order to push the door shut. When you run out of power, you basically get the door version of a springlock failure or something like that.

Based on other games, I think it's generally possible the blast doors are electrified to ward off Animatronics/Tresspassers.

Everyone is talking about the mechanisms and stuff, but I think it's great that Chiptide is collabing with Lobster Boy 427. He's been one of my favourite KZfaqrs for years.

I’ve heard that the electric doors have a security feature where they automatically open so the person can exit the room without being trapped if the power goes out. It’s a safety thing.

My thought was always that they were specifically designed to keep the animatronics out, and that they could just punch down a normal wooden door. I also assumed that they were strong enough to just lift the door up if it was held only by gravity, so they installed electromagnets in the floor to insure that they cannot be opened when engaged. Those electromagnets obviously consume power, and when the building runs out they disengage letting the door come open.

Finally answering the REAL questions

A spring or counterweight is probably what was used on the doors and considering the age of the building these types of solutions would have been most common and cheap for fazbear entertainment. Fires breaking out from these animatronics would have been pretty common.

"Here at fazbear entertainment, entertaining our guests is our number 1 priority. This is why we are called fazbear entertainment, not fazbear health and safety"

A solution is to make the doors raise from the floor. It does not save you from all the stuff that could happen, but makes sense: power needs to be spent so the door is close and if there is no power gravity opens the door.

I just always thought it was a basic heavy door with a heavier counterweight on a pulley being stored elsewhere holding it up that gets raised by hydraulics to lower the door on the opposite end of the pulley system. Just always made sense for a fire emergency or powercut situation.

If I'm not mistaken (from experience in fire drills) the point of a Fire Door is to CLOSE during a fire, to starve a fire of oxygen by shutting all fire doors. During normal operating times, the doors should (generally) remain open at all times, and in the event of a fire, they will automatically close to seal off areas from the fire. It would definitely make sense for the doors to need to be opened in the case of an emergency (for example.. a power outage...)

I always thought when the power reached 0, the doors were thrown open my some force, using the rest of the power so the guard won't have to pry open the doors with their fingers

I always assumed the doors were magnetically sealed, meaning the door track had negatively powered strong magnets keeping the door open. When you press the button to close it, the magnets turn positive thus pulling the door towards the track. It takes power to positively change the negative magnets, therefor when the power goes out the track stays negative and the door remains open This might sound like it's not possible, but this is the same universe where you can walk through objects using the power of AR. So this is at least how it works in my head canon The magnet idea ALSO works for when either Bonnie or Chica jam the door when they get too close. I always imagine it as their feet being in the way of the track causing a disruption and making the door malfunction. Either that, or there's a sensor detecting something in the way of the track so it locks the door open as a safety precaution

From an irl design perspective it would be really dangerous if the doors were stuck closed when the power went out. It's like how on a lot of rides the brakes have to be powered on to be released and they brake when they arent given power. So if they lose power the ride stops.

My school has an ungodly amount of fire doors, so I can confidently say fire doors stay open in normal conditions, but when a fire breaks out they close automatically, requiring them to be manually opened in case of a fire. As people are saying, it's to starve the fire of oxygen. Granted many students in my school thinks its funny to close the doors and break the mechanisms since manybof the doors can't stay open during normal operating hours and have to be held open by a damn door stopper.

When the doors close they will be set on a Emp mode if they are closed and the hydraulic press pushes the door down for more force so the animatronics cannot go through. If the power goes out the hydraulic presses cannot do anything and the Emp isn't active and that the system just locks it open before the power runs out, because else the guard would get trapped

If they made the doors close sideways, horizontal instead of vertical, it still could use gravity to hold them in place and a latch of some sorts to prevent it from going back, and the only power used would be to just open and close the door which is majorly more power efficient then using power to keep a door open/shut

My theory is that they simply just like have a little switch at the top which holds the doors up, and the last bit of power is simply used to make the doors rise to ensure guards aren't locked inside.

16:42, another idea is that the fact they are giant blocks of metal is because fazbear entertainment is very well aware of the animatronics being possessed. and if the building is an older location (I think its the same pizzeria phone guy in fnaf 2 mentions was left to rot even though fnaf 2 is a prequel, though this could be fixed if the location was an older location than fnaf 2 that got reused) it may originally have had regular doors, and since animatronics are built with a solid steel frame endoskeleton, its possible there was an incident where one of the animatronics broke down the door and killed the night guard, as a result, Fazbear entertainment put up the doors we see in the game because the animatronics aren't stopped by regular old doors.

It's a safety hazard so that if there is a fire or some natural disaster the doors open and the employees can escape. The door staying open without power is most likely achieved through a pulley system with power needed to manually lower the door and raising the super heavy weight on the other side of the pulley so that the door can lower.

I've always thought that they opened because there was a fail-safe system to prevent people from getting trapped inside the office in case of a an emergency, like if there is a fire and the power goes out, you won't get trapped in a burning room.

I think that the doors are constantly pressing down using hydraulics. This is done in order to prevent the animatronics from lifting the doors up. Foxy actually runs to your left door, trying to pry it open, causing the hydraulics to compensate with more energy and downward force, thus draining your power

I think the reason the doors aren't normal doors is because they are the doors to a security office and need to be durable enough to resist attackers.

If the doors slid up from the bottom, then them moving down when the power goes off and keeping them up draining power would make a lot more sense.

It would ultimately end up costing less financially if Fazbear Ent. didn't run on a generator. All the food in the building would rot, there would be a flooding risk, etc. You would ultimately end up spending more money fixing things because the power went out than helping them. Also I like that someone finally made a video on this, I think the fire door thing was explained really well in Five Nights at Candy's as well.

I always thought the doors had extra force (power) keeping them shut so the animatronics couldn't pull/wedge them open, and they're big metal doors instead of normal ones for the same reason, so they can't be broken down or forced open. Foxy takes power when you block him with a door because the door's mechanism is exerting extra energy to prevent him from opening it. The doors have to default to open because you could get stuck inside, or get locked out and not be able to get in since the controls are only on the inside. The animatronics are big, strong, fast, and dangerous, so you basically need bunker doors to stop them. A human wouldn't be able to open them by any means other than the controls Come to think of it though, they coulda just made the security room a "safe room" animatronics can't enter, one of which already exists in the building. They wouldn't really have a reason to go in there, so it would've made sense to make it an off-limits room to animatronics just in case of any late night quirkiness going on. Or have the security guard operate from the safe room instead of the current security room

This man is very underrated and deserves more popularity. Keep up the great work!

It’s a safety mechanism that if the power comes off the person who is trapped can easily flee and the doors stay open because they use the last ounces of energy to secure the door from falling down

Wanted this video for YEARS! Thank you!

this is actually really funny, keep it up man :)

To be fair the animtronics could break regular doors

This entire issue could have been solved if the doors slid into the floor while open rather than the ceiling.

I have actually thought of making a mod that makes the doors close when you're out of power and you have to crawl through a vent while Mangle is chasing you to get out of the vent to turn on the generator all while getting chased by the other animatronics

What I love about the wooden door idea is that it would *actually work* because even the Nightmare animatronics couldn’t stand against wooden doors in FNAF 4, and there’s no shot the regular animatronics would be stronger than the Nightmares, so the regular animatronics would just kinda do nothing about it. On top of that, there are windows to the office (which, at the very least, Chica is aware of), yet the animatronics don’t break through them, so they probably just don’t break stuff , and will only really enter an area if the entrance is ethical. The only real concern would be Foxy, but other than that, a wooden door would be even more safe than the one we actually get

I still think they could make a way to lock the door without comstantly using power which still relases when there is a loss of power but makes it so that the door when closed doesn't actually utilise a power / utilise a negliciable amount of power when shut. Ik it would ruin the game but it would be safer since animatronics attacked kids back then and kids would have a safe place to hide.

not only the reasons you listed at the end, but also them being open by mechanical default also would protect peole from getting hit by them if they happen to be in the doorway during an outage. as for why they're blast doors, well, this is the company that has animatronics beyond what should realistically be possible. it'd make sense to have some protections for the night guard who has to be around essentially half tonne walking tank acting up that could injure him a plethera of ways (even excluding the whole possesed-by-murdered-children thing)

Genius video! Im gonna accept this into my own personal headcanon, especially with the amount of fires in this franchise lol

every time u post it makes me happy : ) i look forward to ur videos every week

AY early maybe first idk

8:45 Chip smoothing back his hair was somehow the most threatening thing thing in this video

considering from a lore viewpoint, fire is a HUGE component in the games. fnaf 3 and 6 both burned down. fnaf 3 especially has burnt animatronics from fnaf 1, so therefore that location most likely burnt down after the events of fnaf 1. as for my explanation of how closing it drains power, i can think of two other ways. spring powered and sealed piston powered. springs at the top of the door when the door is opened keeps the springs compressed. power is used to pull the springs apart causing it to close the door. the other one is sealed piston. when the door is open, the piston is at the normal level. when its closed, the piston pulls apart creating a vacuum inside. this requires power for the piston to be extended.

Its possible the security room is so small because it wasnt originally part of the building, or originally only was a closet of some kind. When it was built/comverted into a security office/had another door added Then these considerations needed to be made

I vote they work like really old windows with counter weights that hold it up and the button just toggles a motor that pulls the ropes connected to the weights, hence when you run out of power the motor cant hold the weights and with the company being very old and very cheap it would make sense since this is a very cheap and effective system that can work and is still relevant to the time period

My theory actually has to do with Foxy's gameplay mechanic. If the door is shut, when he gets there, he will bang on it aggressively, draining some power in the process. The doors were never for the "fires" or "power outages" their to keep the animatronics from banging down the doors. if they were wooden hinge doors, freddy & co being canonically 10 ft tall and over 500 lbs (based on circus baby's blueprints from SL) then yeah, they can just tear through that immediately. Doubling as fire doors, based on Pizzeria Sim also makes sense too. So Both.

Suggestion: the doors are electricfied and shocks the animatronics when they touch it to keep you safe, it's this electrification that drains the power. (A potential "retcon" from sister location)

The best solution they could have used is probably a thick metal door and a strong lock mechanism. If there is an exit behind the player, make the door open towards the desk in case of a fire for easy access. If you want convenience of desk tough, make the room a little larger first.

thats exactly what's in my mind for years! thank you

The reason that the doors don't stay open is there is a pully system that has a counterweight, so you don't get stuck in the office.

You give me vibes of like 2015/2016 game theory, I like that

look forward to every one of your videos! :)

I've just found your channel now and I'm . immediately enamored . subscribbled

Very simple. Pistons in the door extend downward against a spring pulling the door back up. Which is why it takes power to keep the door shut, because the pistons are counteracting the spring. A very genius design that makes plenty of sense. A common belief would be that if the power goes down the doors should slam shut with gravity. However, you’d be trapped in the office. So if something as simple as a fuse blowing occurs, there’d be no way to exit. A safety hazard. I think people also overestimate the animatronics strength. They’re robots, but they aren’t designed to be strong like a Terminator Unit. I actually don’t think that most of the animatronics could take a bite out of you. The teeth are probably what cause the problem. Animatronics with more teeth, say, Fredbear or Mangle or Foxy, would generally require stronger jaws that could crush arteries and possibly bone. But even if to assume that all of the animatronics from 85 were capable of biting, there would be legal requirements for the 93 models to have less bite force. Hence why they don’t really eat you, but instead likely drag you to the Parts n Service room and “dress you up” in a suit. But they certainly are not powerhouses like some depict them, and therefore the doors are very effective.

The metal doors were designed specifically to deal with the possible threat the animatronics posed to the staff, as seen in the previous location, one that did not have doors at all. But the unpowered release mechanism being a fire safety feature makes perfect sense.

I think it makes sense that the doors would stay open when they run out of power. If we take the animatronics out of the situation, a power outage would trap the security guard in there for who knows how long.

I've been wondering this forever. Thanks for answering it.

Springs or counterweights would easily explain the energy drain mechanics. As mentioned, having the doors open by default is safer to prevent damage to limbs and avoid trapping people inside.

Next explain why the fnaf 2 location and fazbear’s fright has vents the size to easily let human sized beings crawl through… and with no vent covers

The whole weight mechanism that holds the door open when there's no power applied certainly seems possibles, and possibly explains what's in the empty wall space between the two halls. Fun fact, fire doors actually automatically shut. It's a mechanism to control the spread of smoke, and keeps fire at bay for a certain amount of time. A metal info stamp on part of the door will usually give info on how long the door can withstand the fire. The larger the facility is, the longer the door will need to be able to keep the smoke and flames at bay.

Finally, waited 9 years for this

big metal slabs are absolutely necessary, they're 8 foot tall killer robots, why would a simple hollow wood slab even slow them down, especailly foxy 💀

Honestly, the only reason I can think of the doors opening when unpowered is in case of a fire so someone doesn't get trapped in or somethin

A simple door will not be stopping foxys hook

13:55 could be a good theory if help wanted wasn't a thing. If you turn around, there are lockers

Takes less than two seconds to imagine they have counterweights (like an elevator) so you can't be trapped in the event of a power outage

Great vid but like I don't really agree that they can just use a normal door because the animatronics are made of metal, are huge and definitely weigh enough to ram against a wooden door. Take foxy for an example who laterally rams him self after running at full speed and the metal doors.

I’m pretty sure Scott said something like “because game”

In my opinion 2 strong springs keeping the door up and power pushing it down would be a better design

when you said "I'll literally eat my words" I was like " he's gonna eat his words... cause It's a very good idea for safety in emergencies...and he's going to LITERALLY eat his words in some way"

Here me out, they put a red stone torch behind the button so it would power the door until pressed, simple red stone 🗿

With the amount of fires that had happened to the pizzeria it makes sense that the doors open when the power does as to not kill the guards in the worlds worst oven

Its so you don't get trapped in your office during power outages or fires, amd they dint use normal doors so the animatronics cant bust down the door and so they mistake them for walls due to the lack of a handle

I don't understand why they would use an expensive counterweight when they could still let gravity do all of the work and make the door move down instead of up.

i love how half of the comments are "it must be a safety thing so you don't get trapped", like you know they didn't get past the 10 second mark of the video

This man would go wild if he discovered Fazbear’s Fright

Make the power in the door, push the door upwards instead of downwards. So when it runs out of power the door will fall instead of rise

It makes sense as a safety mechanism. If someone were to get trapped underneath, theoretically, the hydraulics would deactivate upon being unable to keep the doors closed fully, which opens the doors, preventing further damages. With power, it wouldn't make as much sense, at least not with the hydraulics I use on my farm. Though some hydraulic systems are meant to only be operable when provided with enough power. Hydraulics can also use a lot of electricity, especially when they're not properly maintained, old, and so on. When the power goes out, the doors would be forced to be pulled back up, as the hydraulics being held in the "push" state would require electricity to ensure that they're able to deactivate in the event something like a child underneath them is present. Energy would be used to keep the safety there.

The pizzeria just doesn't want to pay so much for electricity bills. It's cheaper if the night guard dies than the amount of of money they'd waste on electricity every day.

this makes so much sense

Imagine this; You are on day shift at Freddy's and Freddy and the gang use a bit too much power, and the whole building goes black. You now are trapped inside the security room for the next day since the last bits of power weren't used to open the door before the power ran out.

7:50 Blud springlocked himself.

I haven't watched the video yet, and the answer is definetly if that was the case the nightguard whouldn't be able to leave, but better question: why does the pizzeria have a second hallway that doesn't have a reason to exist other than having a second entrance to the office?

Omg I have been longing for an answer to this simple question 🎉!

I love this series🥰

10 years to someone finally ask the real questions

There's no window behind you. Help wanted shows us its employee lockers back there

Iirc there was an explanation that the doors were electronic springs and magnetic rails, when they are closed, the springs are powered and they push the door down alongside the rails, this way nothing pulls them back up, even with tools, beside it's a clearly heavy metal door both by appearance and sounds. When there's a power outtage, by design, power to the doors is cut so that in case of a fire the security guard is not trapped in there and there's no risk of death, though it's weird since they're big metal doors, slamming them shut would prevent smoke and fire from coming in, it wouldn't prevent it breaking the window, though.

The fire door idea is honestly really good! I've got some other thoughts on it that I'll be getting out here because I want them out of my brain: *Why would Fazbear Entertainment care about safety (assuming the doors opening is a safety feature)?* It could be that they didn't, but the contractors/construction crews did. A lot of the safety issues that Fazbear Entertainment had was related to the animatronics; something they build in-house. Unless they have their own construction business, Fazbear likely outsources the building of the establishments. While Fazbear might not give two shits if their employees die trapped in a security room, the construction company probably would. Thus, the safety feature is installed. *How do the doors open when there's no power?* Aside from the pulley theory, I think it's also possible that the doors have a sort of battery attached to them. These contain just enough power to open the doors and put some sort of lock on them (like you discussed in the video) to keep them open. Makes a bit more sense and would likely be cheaper than the whole pulley system. *Why not use a normal door?* They're security doors. They're meant to not be openable from the outside and hard to break through/force open. An up-and-down style door is the hardest to force open, as your fighting 100% of the weight of the door as opposed to hinged ones, and the hardest to break open as there's no hinged weak points. *Why do the doors require power to stay closed?* Aside from the "cause game" answer, my guess is that the doors aren't just what they appear; they do something else. Either that's keeping the door more closed, like with an electromagnet system at the bottom to make them harder to force open, or something to fend off animatronics, like electrifying the door or sending out some "return to your stage" signal. Not sure, it's definitely the weirdest part of the door lore.

my theory: the reason Fazbear used such a crazy solution is due to them implementing it back during the pioneering days of automatic fire doors. (At least this solution was one that worked in the long run, unlike some of the other solutions thought up during that time)

Please make a video as to why animatronics shut down at 6:00 AM

If the door just moved up Instead of down, it could actually make a little more sense