This little bugger (sweet looking, isn’t he? Ahahaha,) has figured out how to put a paw under the french doors and pull to open them (they just have a friction latch.) I need to put a real(?) latch on there. I’ve never had french doors before and I just put a couple of dummy knobs on there with the “latch” that came with the door unit. I’m not having a lot of success looking up how you do latches on double doors like this.
Best I can figure is to take for instance the right-hand door and install a normal latch, while taking the left-hand door and installing a slide-bolt latch at the top to make it stationary and mortising a strikeplate in it. Is this normally the way it is done, or is there something I’ve not found?I’ve figured out several ways I could do it, I just need to know how french doors are “normally” latched.Thanks!
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Maybe a bit pricy, but a "Cremone" bolt is nice in this app - all surface mount on the doors, except for the strike mortise in the top jamb and threshold. Van Dykes Renovators in Woonsocket, SD, is where I order mine.
Forrest - gettin' tired of dial-up here at the inlaws!
Just looked that up at VanDyke's. That's a pretty cool looking thing actually, and I love cool and unusual. I'll have to look into it further. Considering that a regular quality door handle is going to cost 35-40 bucks I don't consider that out of line pricewise. Thanks!
McDesign.
If you'd like to go a little upscale Baldwin makes really nice cromone bolts and there are several dealers willing to sell them at much below list price..
Thanks - I'll check that out - I have a set of French doors in the current project.
Forrest
I'll check those Baldwin bolts out as well if I can find them less expensively. I like the way they look, but $3-350 is the price I'm finding and that's a bit out of budget for this project. $150 is about tops but I doubt I'll find those at that price. If they were double Mahogany doors with leaded glass it'd be a bit more inline but these are just plain white inexpensive doors that I spent about $150 on at the big box.
They have them all over the price range.http://www.kilianhardware.com/cremonebolts.htmlBut it looks like they have a couple of lines in your price range.http://www.kilianhardware.com/crembolbypen.html
http://www.kilianhardware.com/crembolbyom.html
Cindy,
You're on the right track. Most french doors I've dealt with have standard door hardware on what's termed the active door. The matching strike plate is located on the inactive door. The inactive door typically has a pair of slide bolts at both the top and bottom. These slide bolts can be mortised into the edge of the door, or they can simply be surface mounted on the top and bottom rails. The strike plates for these slide bolts are mortised into the head jamb and the floor, respectively.
Thanks Ragnar, this is exactly what I needed to know. The slide bolt at the top will be no problem, although putting one at the bottom might be a bit problematical as there's about a 1" or better gap there. It helps with the air flow but is also giving him enough room to stick his paw under to pull. I swear, you've never seen a cat look so proud and smug than he does after he opens that door! I wouldn't care but I keep some houseplants back in the den that are potentially poisonous for the two cats. At the moment I'm using a bungee to bungee the handles together when we go back there. Unsightly, but at least it keeps Mr. Einstein out of the den!Guess it's time to pull out the mortising jig.
Cindy,
How much do your Maine Coons weigh?
Of course you realize that they are not going to be happy once you defeat their efforts to open the door!
I also have a large (about 18-20 pound) cat who is also very mischievious. He'll keep on prying at a door until the rattle gets so annoying that someone will open it for him. I guess we know who the master of our house is! ;)
A client of mine had a cat who could actually open a door by using the round doorknob: The cat would jump onto a small table next to the door, lay accross the knob, and then sort of slide off of it. The friction of its body on the door knob was sufficient to produce the rotary movement required to release the door mechanism. Finally, the cat would pull it open by placing it's paw under the door and pulling, just like yours does.
I think if cats had opposable thumbs we would all be in real trouble.
Got ya beat. Our Pushkin (11 pounds of what the vets call "silver tabby," meaning gray housecat) just jumped up and wiggled the knob until it turned. Almost every door on our house had latches of some kind (many of them still in place) to keep him from opening them whenever he wanted.
About 18-20#. The brown tabby (Narsil) is a little pudgier and shorter. He's the Einstein of the two. His brother Mithril, the blue tabby just follows his lead. Unfortunately. Hubby and I have often commented on how cats really, really, want thumbs. It's bad enough with just paws. I'm waiting on Narsil to figure out how to open the kitchen cabinets. I figure it's just a matter of time.
Until you figure out which bolt system to use, take a look at the top of the doors. Is there a ball or roller there? If the ball type, you can unscrew it (dial it up) which raises it, increasing the holding power of the catch.
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Edited 11/26/2006 7:47 am ET by calvin
Calvin, it is the ball type, but if I remember correctly it's up as far as it will go. These are Maine Coon cats, both males and very strong. I'll check again though to make sure.
Flush-mounted deadbolts used to secure the inactive leaf in a double-door setup can present a problem, because there is frequently no way to mount the upper strike plate without cutting into the head casing. This looks pretty ugly.
As an alternative, you can get deadbolts that are mortised into the strike-face of the inactive door. You can then mortise the strikeplates directly into the head frame and the floor, where they will not be seen when the door is closed.
This is a lot less trouble to install than a full-length mortised cremone bar, and much less expensive. Flush-mounted cremone bars present the same problem as flush-mount deadbolts for the top strike.
Cremone bars are usually more appropriate for true French doors or windows which are fully (ie: both leaves) opened and closed each time the door or window is used. The usual American-style double door set is made of two full-width doors, so only one has to be opened to walk through comfortably. True French doors are usually 15-18" wide each. The advantage they present is the smaller door-swing arc for each door, which intrudes much less into the floorplan.
Since you say you've got an inch of clearance under the door for ventilation, you might need to screw a 1x1x¾ block to the floor under the lower deadbolt. Chamfer the edges slightly and mortise the strike into that.
That block could be a minor tripping hazard when both doors are open, so don't do it if that's your normal practise. If the inactive door is left bolted shut 95% of the time and only opened to move large items in or out, then it will not be a problem.
Of course, even a single deadbolt going into the headframe will prevent the cat from pulling the door open.
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not brought
low by this? For thine evil pales before that which
foolish men call Justice....