I wonder if I could lean on the experience of some of you finish carpenters.
The little house I’m doing now has French doors leading into the office. They’re oak frame, 15-lite. Nice but not complicated. The customer is wondering about having both doors operate with doorknobs. I’ve done French doors before with one door latching to the other and then with a dummy knob and slide bolts top and bottom released once the first door’s open.
I’ve seen what the customer wants in a lot of commercial applications with hollow core steel doors, but I’ve never installed such a thing myself.
Any thoughts?
thanks,
J
Replies
View ImageThe standard way to do this is with cremone bars, but they are very expensive and most models have to be mortised into the full length of the doors which may or may not work for you.
OTOH, you could try a 'library catch.' The one shown here is a cabinet model, but if you put one top and bottom it might be strong enough for your application. When the left-hand door is closed, it drives up the pin latch to lock the right-hand door. Cost about $18 each. Click on the photo for more details. It's made by Lee Valley.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....
Have you tried those for french doors? I considered the library catches once but they seemed too samll for passage doors, more like for a display cabinet. Other than that, the idea is the right one.
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No, I haven't had a request for that; I've got a lot of confidence in the quality of Lee Valley's stuff, but it's just an idea at this point.
I think the reason this demand is so rare is that most so-called 'French' doors installed in N. America are really just two full-width doors hung facing in a double-wide opening, and one of them gets opened once a year (if that). So top and bottom slide bolts are fine for most people.
But that bastard set-up negates one of the prime benefits of real French doors, which is to provide a standard width opening without needing to allow enough swing clearance for a single-leaf door. A six-foot-wide French door unit is composed of one 18-inch-wide fixed lite (or wainscotted panel) on each side of the opening, plus two 16- or 18-inch-wide facing doors. Open both, you've got a 32-36" opening but you only need 16-18" clearance on the swing side.
Some elaborate F-D units have the non-opening lites on either side double hinged and draw-bolted to floor and headframe, so that they can be opened when the need occasionally arises.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
That's a lesson learned for me. I've never seen the fixed lites on either side operable. Thanks for the library catch idea which had never occurred to me before. These units are both going to open weekly at least for business meetings and I think that an oak 15 lite door might be a bit much for them. Maybe I should ask Lee Valley if they've got a beefier one somewhere in their pile of goodies. J
I saw one in a custom 'show' home not far from here a few years ago. It was a very high-end unit; IIRC, the whole thing cost over $7 grand. Beveled glass in all the lites, solid brass hardware, yadda yadda....
Whoosh. I oughta build those on a custom basis....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
<Whoosh. I oughta build those on a custom basis....>What keeps you from doing it? Not my business, really, just thought I'd ask.
J
I already build a fair number of custom doors and windows, but these are usually storms/screens to retro-fit into factory units that (duh!) were provided without those little necessities of modern life. (It absolutely stonkers me to see 99%+ of new houses up here built without a screen/storm door.)
If I ever turn up a client who could afford that kinda dough for a custom F-D unit, I would probably need to have custom brass hardware made up by Brusso or someone like that. But it would be a neat project....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Here's a Cremone set on exterior doors from Van Dykes (mail order)
View Image
Forrest
Thanks. That's what I was thinking of but hadn't seen in a residential application before. I'm off now to check the price of that thing, which I assume will be pretty high. That's OK: so far these folks have been hitting the high side of the decisions that need to be made. J
Here's the exact ones I got. Remember - one set per door.
http://www.vandykes.com/product/02016435/
Forrest
Shoot, that's not bad at all at $90 a pop. I thought they'd be more. thanks for the connectionJ
Just another thought.
The reason this works in commercial aplications is because the doors have closers on them.
Maybe a concealed closer might be able to eliminate all that visible hardware.
In door; http://www.lcn.ingersollrand.com/pdfs/330.pdf
In frame; http://www.lcn.ingersollrand.com/pdfs/5030.pdf
Like I said, just a thought, I actually like all that visual hardware. My parents had something similar (in the ranch I grew up in) on a pair of plantation doors Mike
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