I feel like a crazy person saying this but: one particular door handle in an office building I go to once peer week always feels warmer than ambient.

It’s the handle inside the stairwell on the main floor. It feels warmer than ambient, with either hand, if I was just using the handrail or not. There’s no sunlight shining on it. I use the handle on my way out of the building a few minutes after I pass by it on the way in, so I know there’s nobody standing there holding it for several minutes just before I use it. It feels warm if I check it on my way into the building as well.

The handle on the lobby side of the door seems normal. The handle upstairs seems normal. The door feels normal. The strike plate in the doorframe feels normal.

It’s super weird. Could the motion detector mounted above the door be bathing it in IR light or something?

I’m going to see if I can find my IR thermometer to quantify my subjective observation. Are there any other potential sources of energy I haven’t thought of? Anything that could be messing with my perceptions? anything in particular I should remember when going to collect some data?

Update:

Nothing in the strike plate. Electrical conduit goes into door frame, but not into door.

I took some measurements today. Sorry it took so long, I forgot the thermometer twice, then remembered but discovered it was out of batteries. Then I forgot the batteries once or twice.

Infra red forehead thermometer with “liquids” setting. I don’t trust it for absolute values but for relative values I think it’s okay.

I put blue masking tape on some points of interest so that I’d be measuring from the same material.

I waited at least a minute between applying tape and measuring temps.

The conduit on the left: 24.0C The junction box on the right:24.0C The handle on the hallway side of the door (not pictured): 26.0C The handle on the stairwell side of the door: 28-29.5C depending on where I measure.

Someone that works in the building mentioned the door in the basement is the same. I only measured the handle down there but yeah 28-29.5.

A problem with my methodology: I put some of the tape on a few weeks ago, (conduit and junction box), and some of it today (the door handles) all the door handles measured warmer than the conduit and junction box. It’s possible the tape had warmed up in my car in the sun, or pulling it off the roll may have warmed it.