Reliable, high-quality hinges are crucial for making sure a door stays in the right place and doesn’t drop, while opening and closing doors smoothly. Whether you’re looking to select the right hinge for your needs or need an answer to a question, here’s our guide to the key facts and features you should know, before choosing hinges
Hinges are hardware that connects two things together, bearing the weight from one side to the other while allowing it to open and close easily. They are found on almost all residential doors and windows, main entrance/exit doors, and commercial buildings.
From light to severe duty, we offer an extensive range of fire door hinges, maintenance free hinges, butt hinges and security dog-bolt hinges. No matter the strength and style you need, we can help.
People may think the weight of the door/window the hinges are holding is the sole weight determinator, but in reality that weight is determined by a number of factors. Things like severe weather conditions (high-speed wind, frequent storms), or whether the door is subject to physical abuse (i.e. security doors, as well as what other hardware is fitted to the door) play a role in calculating the final adjusted weight the hinges can withstand. Therefore hinges are classed in various grades, representing the final adjusted weight they can hold. Grade 14 is represented by some of the strongest hinges available.
The lifetime of any door hinge is particularly influenced by how frequent its maintenance is. Considering a wide range of factors, an average lifetime for a door hinge is about 10-15 years. However, provided they are properly maintained and used in accordance to their specification, some hinges can last double that time.
Cranked hinges are used to allow for doors/windows to open at a wider angle than normal. Depending whether they are double, self-closing or standard they can allow wider opening gaps past 180 degrees. They are most commonly applied to cabinet doors.
Also known as double swing, double acting or saloon hinges, the double action hinges are the most suitable solution to allow doors to swing in both directions and return to their resting position automatically.
A lot of doors don’t require more than 2-3 hinges,but fire doors must be as closely fitted to the door frame as possible with a gap no bigger than 5mm. To achieve that, fire doors need no less than 3 hinges to meet UK fire door standards and regulations.
For more information on our fire door hinges, please download our trade catalogue.
To select the most suitable hinges for your application you need to consider certain key questions:
Is it a fire, smoke or emergency escape door?
How heavy is the door and what are the door dimensions (height, weight, thickness)?
Is the door situated internally or externally?
What level of use and/ or abuse is expected?
What other hardware is fitted on the door that may affect the performance?
As previously mentioned, the best suited hinges for your application have multiple factors to determine their suitability. A grade 11 would be a good choice, for residential, public, institutional and commercial applications. Alternatively, grade 12-14 would be a better solution if you are fitting a door potentially subject to abuse.
In contrast to external doors, internal doors seldomly require heavy and severe duty grading to perform. While that’s not the case for each situation, if there are no specific requirements for the hinge application, a grade lower than 11 is suitable for internal doors.
Proper maintenance is at the heart of prolonging product lifetime. Provided they are installed correctly, reliable, high-quality hinges only need to be oiled upon installation and no more than 1-2 times a year. There are also maintenance free hinges.
Typically, the hinges need to be fitted 250mm from the top and bottom of the door. For doors of heavier construction or with a hold open door closing device, it is best practice to fit 2 hinges at the top of the door with a third hinge at the bottom of the door. For improved load bearing the additional hinge should be placed 200mm from the centre line of the top hinge.
When hinges have been screwed in askew or the screw heads are too large to fit flush in the hinge flaps, it may cause the hinges to bind the door with the door frame. While it can be frustrating, this can easily be fixed by putting in screws with smaller heads.
To shim a door hinge refers to prehung doors and windows that need to be fitted into a frame that’s off centre or slightly bigger. If a door is rubbing against the doorpost or frame, a small piece of paper, wood or metal would be used to correct the fitting.
