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kateskouros

what kind of door stops are you using?

kateskouros
12 years ago

what are your preferences for types of door stops? i've never had to worry about this before and to be honest, i can't recall what kind we had in the old house. actually, now that i think about it, i'm wondering if we had any at all.

i was considering those half moons that mount to the floors, but my dh isn't thrilled with the idea of drilling them into our hardwood floors. i realize once all the furniture is moved in my attention won't be focused on these very small but highly noticeable (to me) functional items, but what is the least noticeable location for a door stop? baseboard, back of door, wall?

Comments (20)

  • nini804
    12 years ago

    Ours are in the baseboards, honestly, the only time I even see them is when, ahem, sitting on the potty! :) I agree with your dh, I wouldn't want anything drilled into the floors. I didn't even like that they had to put air vents in the floors, and those were pretty and oak!

  • mydreamhome
    12 years ago

    I prefer the ones on the door hinges. If the door is 6'8" or 7' the top hinge works for placement. Taller than that and you need to either place it at the middle hinge or use two stops one at the top and one at the bottom.

    We had the ones attached to the baseboard at 2 of our last houses and the kids were always playing with the ones that are designed like a big spring--getting the dust accumulation out of the springs was also a bear. The solid ones were always coming out of the baseboard as the screw attaching it was too short. This is just our experience.

  • chispa
    12 years ago

    I have the ones that screw into the baseboards. I just had all the trim & doors repainted and I had the painters fill in some of the holes where I felt we didn't really need the doorstops. But I have a bigger problem - we bought the house this past year, it is 10 yrs old - most of the doorstops are missing the little rubber bumper!! How did that happen? Maybe the previous owners had a dog who ate the bumpers! It isn't easy to find replacements for just the bumpers in the right size and color.

  • pps7
    12 years ago

    We used the hinge ones also for the same reasons stated by mydreamhome.

  • nini804
    12 years ago

    Chispa, in our old house we had the kind with the white rubber stoppers and I took them all off when my children were toddlers, as I was afraid they would pull them off and choke! I never got around to putting them back on...but since the family who bought our house has babies...they probably didn't want them either! Perhaps that's what happened to yours.

  • chispa
    12 years ago

    Nini, I know the previous owners' kids were already older when they moved here, but I did have a friend a while back whose toddler was fond of chewing on the doorstops!! We will be buying new door hardware for an addition we just did, so I will try to get the GC to find me the extra stoppers.

  • kateskouros
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    i don't think i've ever seen door stops that work with the hinges. i'm googling...

  • kateskouros
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    dekeoboe, i came across this product soon after i began searching for the hinge stoppers. i'm definitely going to order one to see how they work. i don't think anyone would notice it was even there.

    i'll post back after i try it out.

  • athensmomof3
    12 years ago

    Wow, those are cool. I don't like the half moon ones either although my door hardware guy has ordered several (I guess the baseboard ones won't work). Might have to look at those for our doors with the half moon stops.

  • chispa
    12 years ago

    I have seen damage done to doors by the half-moon hinge mounted door stops. Haven't seen any damage by the baseboard mounted ones. The hinge mounted ones without any exterior parts look like a good solution. Kate, let us know how it works.

  • jhwu
    12 years ago

    I wish I had known about those doorsavers before!!! Ingenious!

    Anyways, we use magnetic half moons drilled into both wood floors and terrazzo floors. We like them a lot as they hold our doors open when we want them to.

    {{gwi:1410436}}

  • ohlaches
    11 years ago

    Bumping this up in the hopes that Kate (or someone else?) has tried those bumperless stops. Our builder tried them (but a different brand I think) on our 8' doors and said he thought the doors were too heavy and they would damage the hinge. I'm wondering if we move it to the middle of the door or use two if that would help? Anybody use these yet?

  • LilFlowers MJLN
    11 years ago

    When we moved into the house with our 3 oldest boys, I immediately became aware that I would need some kind of doorstop for our doors. I didn't want anything drilled into our walls. Since the floor is concrete, we couldn't attach something there. On our hunt at our local home improvement store, we found some plastic door knob stops that are glued onto the wall and are paintable. We haven't had any kind of damage to the walls where we put them.

    We forgot about the one in the garage(it's fully finished). There was a hole from the doorknob going through the drywall. My husband bought the bigger plastic wall protector and put it over the hole and it's still there with no notion that there is a hole there. It's still working after almost 4 years of living here. BTW, our walls are coated with the orange peel texture. The door stops haven't so much as moved or came unglued even in our high humidity climate. The plus is that no one even notices that they are there.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Door stops we use

  • ILoveRed
    11 years ago

    Jhwu--can you tell us a little more about your door stops? Brand, pics, etc.

  • dekeoboe
    11 years ago

    aargh, my response disappeared, lets's try this again.

    We did order the Door Saver II door stops. They work well, but my husband ran into two issues.

    The first is that you may not be able to adjust them the way you were hoping to. If you look at the picture I posted above, you can see how the top part fits on the bottom part. In order to do this, the zig zags have to line up. You may find that in one position the door still hits the wall, but when you move to the next position the door does not open as far as you hoped it would. This is mainly a problem if the wall next to the hinges is small and you find you cannot adjust it such that the door opens a full 90 degrees.

    The second problem has to do with the distance between the hinges and the door frame. You may find that the top piece will not slide over the bottom piece because it hits the door frame. My husband solved this problem by chiseling a piece out of the door frame.

    So, the product works, but I would suggest you first watch the video at their website so you understand how these work. You might also want to order just one and try it out in your situation before ordering a number of them.

  • dekeoboe
    11 years ago

    My husband did install them on the middle hinge. Our doors are 6'8" though.

  • klowak
    8 years ago
    last modified: 8 years ago

    These comments by everyone were very helpful. We are going to order the Door Saver for some of our doors. My hubby and I were not seeing eye to eye with ordering wall or baseboard mounted door stops. We will likely use either the door saver or the round wall mount stops - depending on the location of the door. I didn't want unsightly "dots" all over my walls, and he didn't like the baseboard mounted ones, due to issues with vacuuming and tripping over them (I have never tripped on one....??). Thanks for the tips on the door saver dekeobe, my husband thinks we might have issues with some of our doors as the casings are 1/2 " thick. But we will try it on the entry door that is 8' .

  • bluesanne
    8 years ago

    While I realize this is an ancient thread, I had to reply. Our builder installed the spring door stops that attach to the baseboards, and while I think they're an eyesore, our cat LOVES them. He bats them with his paw just to hear the thwwwaaang! How can I replace them?

  • No Name
    3 years ago

    I have never seen a hinge-pin doorstop that was adjusted properly so that it did anything and I'm convinced that if one were, it would be only a matter of time before it pulled the hinge off the door frame. As for the peg-style stops, I like to put them high-up on the wall on a stud, instead of on the baseboard, so they won't be as vulnerable to damage or pose a chocking hazard to children. The bumpers that stop the doorknob from going through the wall also work well; I once had to mount a short vinyl bumper on one hollow closet door to stop the knob from the hall door from going through it. Ironically, most of the other doors in that house had no stops because the 3/4" rock-lath-plaster walls (at least at their young age) were too hard to be harmed be a knob on a light door.

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