Friday, February 24, 2012

Tough, Homemade Door Stops For a Windy Day!

Drill a hole, add a threaded concrete bolt with washers, drill concrete and, voila! The best door stop made for less than $9.00!
Sometimes, when a door in a commercial building is opened,air pressure coming in from that door will force another door in the building to open up unless it is locked.  If the door that is opening up is a commercial glass narrow stile door, it could be damaged if the wind catches it. 

If a door swings open with nobody there to check that it is closed back properly, a gust of wind could easily take that door and slam it into a wall.  If there is no wall, the door will open up as far as it can under the pressure of the wind, and break the pivots, the door closer, and  possibly bend the top door header.

Today, I had a call to check a small doorstop that was installed to keep a large glass narrow-stile door from opening up forcefully in windy situations.  The door stop, only one month old, was destroyed beyond repair.  Because this stop was near a corner of a building where people could not trip over it, I had an idea.  I decided to make my own door stop,

I went to a better hardware store and purchased a large hard rubber cylinder.  It had about a two inch diameter and was about one and a half inches tall.  I drilled a hole through this cylinder so that I could insert a threaded concrete bolt though it.  First, I took the concrete bolt and placed a large stainless steel washer on it.  Next came the rubber cylinder.  Because the door was elevated a little above the sidewalk, I took four large washers and placed them on the concrete bolt against the rubber cylinder.  I drilled a 3/8 inch hole in the concrete and used a socket wrench to fasten the concrete bolt tightly.

Cost? $8.50.  Installation time?  5 Minutes!

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