rambling quesiton on correct location for door stops - baseboard

12 years ago

Hi there,

Having a hard time formulating this question, but here goes:

We live in an apartment and space is tight, especially considering the way the rooms flow - e.g. the door for our home office opens almost directly into the doorway for the living room, etc...

Every time I try to imagine door stops, I picture myself or a guest tripping over them (standard door stops project about 3" from the wall).

I measured our door knobs and levers and none of them project more than 2.5" from the wall.

I did find some 2.5" door stops online, but in the course of searching also found some really tiny, hard to trip over 1.5" stops. If I mount them further in toward the center of the door instead of the edge, they will stop the handle from dinging the wall just as effectively as the 2.5" or 3" stops mounted on the baseboard (or in the floor) at the outside edge.

Does this make sense?

So, if the office door is closed, and the LR door is open and you walk through, you are not likely to trip over that... partly because it is smaller, only 1.5" and partly b/c it is further in from the entranceway.

If you are still with me, here are my final questions:

1. will it look weird?

2. is there a construction reason why we shouldn't do this? (e.g. the door's lower corner is reinforced to take the pressure of hitting a doorstop but not the center bottom??? I dunno, making that up as an example!)

Thanks in advance!

Featured Answer

bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz

12 years ago

There are two potential problems with the door stops that attach to the hinges.

1) In our old house, we had hollow core doors and one time a teen-aged visitor tripped over his own feet and fell against the door pushing it hard up against the doorstop that was on the hinge. The hingepin doorstop actually punched a hole right thru one side of the door! The bottom several inches of hollow core doors have a solid interior which protects against regular door stops pushing thru but the edges (sides) are actually hollow. If you have solid core doors, this shouldn't be an issue for you.

2) Hingepin door stops don't work for doors that you want to have swing open nearly 180 degrees. You can set hingepin door stops to allow the door to swing open a maximum of maybe 135 degrees or so but, more than that, and they just don't work. They work best for doors that only swing open about 90 degrees or a little more. And, you have to make sure the hingepins stops will fit the hinges on your doors. Our exterior doors have extra large hinge pins and the doorstops we bought wouldn't fit.

Have you considered using wall-mounted door "bumpers" instead of door stops. Door bumpers come in a variety of styles and colors (some can even be painted to match your wall) and they mount on the wall where the door handle would otherwise bump. Some screw in place, some are attached with adhesive. Some people think they look a bit "industrial" but at least there is nothing sticking out on the floor to trip over or catch a toe on or get in the way when your mopping or vaccuuming. We put up a couple like them a lot.

Here is a link that might be useful: door bumpers

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Comments (10)

david_cary
12 years ago
I suspect the extra force on a stop in the middle of the door would possibly be a problem. We probably shouldn't get into physics here but I believe you would get more force and less velocity. That would tend to dent the door depending on the door material. Or it would break the door stop.

You know, they make stops that attach to the top hinge - they have their issues but if you are worried about tripping then I would do that. They are generally used when a door stop is impossible. They tend to mar the trim but it depends what the trim is made of. We have a few and on an 8 foot solid core door and a strong toddler, we have some dents in finger jointed pine.
brickeyee
12 years ago
"Every time I try to imagine door stops, I picture myself or a guest tripping over them (standard door stops project about 3" from the wall)."

Unless you have your back pressed against the wall and are sliding down it, your feet are a lot further than 3 inches from the wall when you are walking.

If you are still worried get doorstops that have a spring shaft.
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terezosa / terriks
12 years ago
I have the door stops that go on the hinges. I like not having door stops on the baseboards, and the hinge type are adjustable to limit how far the door opens. We haven't had any problems with ours.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hinge door stop
kcmo_ken
12 years ago
Use the ones attached to the hinges. And nothing limits you to putting these doorstops on only one hinge. If you use more than one (to minimize marring the trim), then they all need to be adjusted the same => not tough but extra detail.
lazypup
12 years ago
Use the wall mounted door stops that fit at the doorknob height, they only project 1".
dandylandy
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks, lots of good ideas here - will have to buy some samples and see how the various options look before committing ... Noticed in some home magazines today that they NEVER show doorstops. Must be airbrushed right out of the photo, lol!
sombreuil_mongrel
12 years ago
The answer is in the geometry; the only way a doorstop that's shorter than the projection of the knob would work (even counting the thickness of the baseboard to which it is affixed) would be for the hinge pin (pivot point of the door) to be closer to the 90* wall that the stop is on. That would cause an angle that would allow the stop. mounted to meet the bottom rail at the midpoint resulting in the knob not hitting the wall surface. The Hinge being closer to the corner will mean that there will be diminished trim on the doors along the hinge side.
Hinge stops are a fallback position, but are pretty poor engineering-wise, and only suitable on lightweight hollow doors.
Casey
brickeyee
12 years ago
"Hinge stops are a fallback position, but are pretty poor engineering-wise, and only suitable on lightweight hollow doors. "

They are pretty bad.

On hollow doors they can punch through the door skin, and on heavy doors smash the door casing trim.

It still appears to be more of perception problem than an actual one.

No one normally walks that close to a wall.

Even if your shoulder is touching the wall, your feet are not as wide.
dandylandy
Original Author
12 years ago
Brickeyee's point *seems* to make sense, about one's shoulders being wider than feet, and yet.... I have tripped over MANY doorstops in various homes, apartments, and public places over the years. And isn't that why they make some of them flexible, like a spring?

In our apartment, the doors open onto each other room to room - i.e. it isn't like a house where a door opens against a wall and that is dead space back there.

I think I will be using 2.5 inches and putting them on the baseboards and keeping my fingers crossed. The 3 - 3.5" really are too big (I made a model using a pencil and some tape) and the wall ones would be distracting in our living room and other areas, and it sounds like the hinge stops won't be up to the job.

Thanks, everyone, for your input!

rambling quesiton on correct location for door stops - baseboard

bevangel_i_h8_h0uzz

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rambling quesiton on correct location for door stops - baseboard

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