Door closers – types, device and installation

Recommendation points

• How door closers work
• Closer types
• Upper
• Floor
• Hidden
• Closers classification
• Basic principles of installing door closers
• Closer operation and maintenance
• Door closers prices

Door closers – devices that provide smooth door closing – are quite popular, but not everyone knows what they are and, accordingly, where they can be used. We will tell you about this, as well as about how to choose, install and operate the door closer in our article..

What could be worse than a loud slamming door? Perhaps only one that never closes at all. Therefore, on the one hand, I would like the door to close itself, thereby conserving heat, and on the other hand, for this process to be silent. Previously, complex counterbalanced systems were used to solve these problems – bulky and therefore not applicable at home. Therefore, in houses and apartments, banal door springs were installed to close the doors, but they do it very loudly.

With the advent of door closers, all problems were solved. Moreover, the low price, reliability and ease of installation made it possible to use them not only on entrance doors, for example, in the entrance, but in general on any doors that need silent automatic closing, including interior doors.

In addition to the listed qualities, door closers, depending on the design, are capable of solving a number of other tasks:

• two-range adjustment of the closing speed (acceleration at the moment of slamming);
• protection of the door from hitting an obstacle;
• fixing the door in the open position.

How door closers work

The main working element of any door closer is a spring. It is she who, when opening the door, contracting, accumulates energy, which, if the door is released, will return it to its original closed state. So that the door closes smoothly and does not bang, the door closers have the second most important element – an oil shock absorber. Through the valve system, oil flows from one chamber to another when the door is opened and then back when it is closed. The viscosity of the shock-absorbing fluid gives the process the necessary smoothness, which leads to the silent closing of the door. There are door closers that have more than one shock absorber, but several – this does not change the essence. In various devices, the working spring is driven by its own mechanism. In fact, it is he who determines the type of closer in structural terms..

Door closer design: 1 – link arm; 2 – adjustment of the closing force; 3 – spring block; 4 – gear drive; 5 – needle bearing; 6 – adjusting the closing speed; 7 – latch adjustment

Closer types

Upper

When we say “door closer”, we usually mean this type. The working body, installed above the door or on the door leaf (depending on the installation option), and the system of levers transmitting the force to the spring, in fact, is the whole description of the design of this type of door closers.

According to the structure of the mechanism for transmitting force to the spring, the upper closers are divided into:

1. Gear-driven door closers. In them, the lever is connected to a gear that drives either a toothed pin with a spring or a piston with teeth. Simple and reliable design makes these door closers the most popular today.

2. With sliding bar. The axis is a cam-shaped heart-shaped shaft that drives a spring, and two pistons: opening and braking, make the design of such a closer less bulky and more reliable. Sliding rod door closers have not yet become widely used, but over time should replace gear-driven devices..

Floor

Floor closers are completely invisible and can be used wherever door design is a priority. Most often they can be found in shopping centers – department doors are equipped with just such devices. In fact, they are the progenitors of door closers with a sliding rod, in any case, it was from the floor closers that they borrowed their design. Unlike the overhead door closers, there are no levers that drive the floor closers. The door is fixed directly on this axis. This design allows them to be used with doors weighing up to 300 kg, but also imposes its own limitations on the scope.

Hidden

Where the presence of a door closer should be as less noticeable as possible, in addition to floor closers, hidden ones can be used. They can be roughly divided into two categories:

1. Concealed with a sliding bar. In essence, they are no different from similar overhead door closers, except that they have a more miniature design that can be hidden in an array of door leaf or door frame.

2. Closer loop. The smallest device. The whole mechanism is hidden in the hinge body. A very promising view, since the installation of the closer does not require additional work on drilling and chiselling the door leaf, except for those that are necessary for the hinges themselves. By virtue of their specificity, they have several disadvantages that limit the scope of their application: they cannot be installed on massive doors; due to the requirements for miniaturization, they have a relatively small working resource; very demanding on the thoroughness of the door leaf installation.

Closers classification

It is quite obvious that all doors are different in their parameters: weight and size. Different doors require different closers: for more massive ones – with a greater opening / closing force, for light ones – with less. Actually, based on this, the closers are divided into classes:

Closer class	Maximum width of the door leaf, mm	Maximum door leaf weight, kg
1	750	20
2	850	40
3	950	60
4	1100	80
five	1250	one hundred
6	1400	120
7	1600	160

It should be noted that it is necessary to navigate when choosing a larger parameter, that is, for a door, for example, 1000 mm wide and weighing 105 kg, a 6th class closer is required.

When choosing, you should not buy a closer with a margin. The resource, as it may seem at first glance, you will not increase this, but you will have to put unnecessary efforts to open the door.

Basic principles of installing door closers

Installing a door closer is a rather difficult process. Not only the service life of the closer itself, but also the door will depend on how correctly this is done. Excessive efforts during work can damage the door hinges, deform the door leaf. But everything is not as scary as it seems at first glance.

It should be noted that the installation of floor and hidden closers is the lot of professionals, the operations that need to be performed are painfully specific. For floor-standing ones, this is the integration of the door closer into the floor before the door is installed, plus an accurate calculation of the place of the axis of rotation. For hidden ones – marking the placement at the end of the door leaf and arranging recesses for it. For the door closer hinge – precise selection of the angle of inclination of the door plane. Therefore, we will consider in more detail the basic principles and nuances of installing an overhead door closer.

First of all, you need to understand that there is no such door on which a closer cannot be installed. Right and left opening inward or outward – each has its own way.

For example, there is a left inward opening door with a small door frame width. In this case, the closer body is placed on the door leaf:

And this is a variant of the front door. Since negative temperatures do not have the best effect on the work of the closer, it becomes clear that it must be installed indoors. The door itself must open outward. This installation option is possible:

For convenience, complete with the closer itself, as a rule, there is an installation diagram.

All you need to do is to decide on the type of your door, transfer the scheme to the canvas and the box and, strictly following the attached instructions, fix the body and the closer levers in the right places.

There are several nuances that should be discussed separately..

Firstly, it is fasteners. The higher the force applied to the door when opening, the greater the load on the fasteners. It is not uncommon for the included screws to simply pull out. The reliability of the fastening should be taken care of in advance. In some cases, it makes sense to replace the standard screws with more powerful ones. When installing a door closer on a plastic door, it is better to use not screws at all, but screws that should go through the door leaf and fasten with nuts through a large washer or a mounting plate on the back side. This will give the necessary reliability to the fastening elements. Otherwise, after a couple of months, the standard fasteners will tear out of the hollow structure of the plastic profile.

Secondly. A completely natural question arises, what will happen if the door closer is slightly moved along the upper edge of the doorway. It seems that by moving towards the hinges, the door can be opened more easily by increasing the lever arm. Moving in the opposite direction – you can use a closer than the recommended class by reducing the shoulder. To simplify the understanding of the essence of the processes, you can take the axis of the closer for the axis of rotation of the door (in fact, not entirely true, but the difference in calculations for this and for a more accurate case is very small). Then the shoulder of force (this is the distance from the axis to the side edge of the door opposite to the one where the hinges are installed) applied to the closer will change by the same amount as we move the closer. To estimate how many times this effort will change, it is necessary to divide the length of the resulting shoulder by the length of the original.

Example. Door 1000 mm wide. The door closer is installed at the recommended distance of 160 mm. Leverage of force: 1000 – 160 = 840 mm. Moving the closer 50 mm towards the hinges, we will increase the shoulder by 890/840 = 1.06 times. This is how many times it will become easier for you to open the door, and it is more difficult for a closer to close it, that is, it is completely insignificant. Moving the closer to the other side, you will also achieve little in terms of lightening the closer, but due to the limited linkage of the levers, the door will stop opening to the required angle.

The next step after installing the closer is to adjust it. Most devices have two screws for this – one for adjusting the speed of closing the door, the other for closing. Using a screwdriver, achieve the required values.

If the door closer with a latching function, then the work will be added to the setting of the actuation point of the door latching in the open position.

Closer operation and maintenance

It would be wrong to think that after installing the closer you can forget about it. How long it will last will primarily depend on its correct operation and timely maintenance..

You need to know that if there is an obstacle that interferes with the normal opening and closing of the door, then it must first be eliminated, and only then use the closer. For example, it can be rubbing the door leaf on the jamb, or some object in the path of the door. This should be monitored, since such obstacles may appear during operation..

To avoid premature wear, do not leave the door open for a long time with the door closer connected. The exception is those that have special design features for this (this is more for floor closers installed, as mentioned, on the front doors of shops and requiring such fixation for the whole working day).

Since seasonal temperature fluctuations can be quite significant, and the viscosity of the oil in the closer housing depends on the ambient temperature, then for those that stand on the front doors, adjustment is required twice a year. In addition, it is necessary to monitor the lubrication of rotating and rubbing parts. If you do not carry out regular maintenance, then the closer may break prematurely..

As a rule, if the closer is out of order, then, unfortunately, it is not possible to repair it, only to change it. Signs of a breakdown will be oil leaks and the fact that he stops holding the door, and the adjustment will not correct the situation.

Door closers prices

In order to make it easier to choose a closer, in conclusion, you should indicate the prices for products of the most common manufacturers..

Of the inexpensive ones, this is, for example, the Russian-Chinese company Apecs, which mainly manufactures overhead door closers. The price for them starts from 500 rubles. for the simplest models and reaches 1500 rubles. for door closers of higher classes.

Among the branded manufacturers, one can single out the German firms Dorma and Geze or the Italian firm Cisa. Prices for their products are slightly higher – from 900 rubles. for the simplest top closers with a gear mechanism, and from 10,000 rubles. for devices with a sliding rod. Door closer hinges are produced, for example, by Fuaro, and you can buy them at a price of 600 rubles. a piece.