March 2012

Is there a way of determining the position the hinges need to go on a door?

Hinge positioning is determined by the size, weight and construction of the door and its intended use.  The top and bottom hinges are easy - around 250mm from the top and bottom of the door.  The most common position for the third hinge is in the middle, this is a good position where the loading is normal.  The middle hinge will also stop a door from warping in a humid environment.  Where a door is heavier, wider or has a door closer, then the middle hinge should be moved up to about 200mm below the top hinge.  When four hinges are used due to extra weight, height, width, abuse level, the hinges can be either equally positioned or set as two pairs at the top and bottom separated by about 200mm.

---

We recently bought your R40.16 timber sliding door kits up to 40kg, but we've changed the doors to heavy pine ones as they're going to have regular use. Do you have anything suitable?

For doors up to 80kg each in weight, you can use the same track as the R40 that you already have, and buy the Rollan 80 extra door packs, this will give you the wheels etc to run in the tracks, which are strong enough to support your doors.  If the doors are more than 80kg each, then you'd need to go up to the Perlan 140 sliding door gear, which is made by the same manfacturer, Geze, but has a heavier duty track to the Rollan.

---

Our local club has an external opening emergency exit door which is fitted with an Exidor panic bar on the inside. Externally there is no way of opening the door and due to the door opening to an external smoking area we would like to fit some sort of hardware whereby the external handle can be disabled for security, but enabled while the property is occupied. This needs to be locked at night. What can we use?

We would suggest a door closer, such as the Geze TS2000, used in combination with an outside access device, such as the Exidor 322EC lockable door handle which will be freely usable during club opening hours, then locked at night.

---

What is a rebated door?

I need to put crash bars on double doors, can you tell me what are rebated doors? Rebated double doors have a lip on the vertical edge where they meet, called a "rebated meeting stile".  Shown in the photo below, there is a primary or leading leaf (A) which can open and close without effecting the secondary or following leaf (B). If the secondary door is opened, it needs to close fully into the frame BEFORE the primary leaf.  The primary door can be on the left or the right, and our panic hardware for rebated doors is suitable for either handing.  The alternative to rebated doors is "plain meeting stiles" where the two leaves come together squarely.