Lewis Aldridge Joinery

Your bespoke door solution

  
When ordering doorsets you will be asked to specify the hinge configuration you require.
As a guide please find below a number of considerations. This list is not exhaustive and as we will not full disclosure of the installation, final specifications will be your responsibility.

Some factors to consider when choosing hinges and hinge configuration
  • Fire Rating.
  • Door leaf weight, including any vision panel, and door dimensions (width, height and thickness).
  • Door leaf construction.
  • Door leaf location (e.g. internal or external, near to a swimming pool, near to the coast, in a wet area).
  • Expected level of use/abuse (e.g. school of hospital corridor, office).
  • Weight and effect of other items of ironmongery to be added to the door leaf (e.g. heavy stainless steel pull handles, door closers, door stops).
  • Any non-standard features of the doorset (e.g. bi-fold doors, double action doors)
  • Forces acting on a door leaf
  • There are two main forces acting on the hinges: the vertical load and the horizontal load.
  • The vertical load is directly attributed to the weight of the door leaf, vision panel and any ironmongery added to the leaf.
  • The horizontal (side) load is attributed to a number of factors including:
  • The door leaf weight
  • The door leaf height to width ratio (the wider the leaf is in relation to the height, the greater the horizontal load that the hinges and fixings have to support)
  • The hinge positions

General guidelines
It is standard practice for Lewis Aldridge to hang doorsets using at least 3 hinges unless specialist hinges such as continuous hinge is specified. The top and bottom hinges are positioned as far apart as is practical to maximise their ability to support the leaf. Considerations should be made for the position of the third hinge and whether a fourth hinge is also required.
Tall doors – (approximately 2200 mm or over) should be fitted with a fourth hinge to prevent warping
Wide doors increase the forces acting on each hinge. This should be taken into consideration and the mass of the door leaf supported by each hinge should be minimised. This can be calculated by dividing the leaf height by its width. If the result is 2 or greater, no allowance needs to be taken into consideration with respect to width. If the result is below 2 you will need to take horizontal loading into account.

Adjusted door leaf weight
As listed above, there are a number of factors to take into account in an addition to the actual door leaf weight. This is the adjusted door leaf weight.

For example:
A door leaf of 2040 x 926 x 44 mm, weighing 55 kg, fitted with a backcheck door closer in a heavy footfall corridor:
55 kg + 75% (backcheck door closer) + 10% (heavy use area) = 105 kg

A door leaf of 2040 x 1150 x 44 mm, weighing 65 kg, fitted with a standard door closer (no backcheck) in a low use office:
65 kg + 23% increased door width) + 20% (standard door closer) = 96 kg
Add adjusted door weight calculation table here


The above information is given as a guidance only.
  

3 Hinge Position 1 

3 Hinge Position 2

4 Hinge Position 3

4 Hinge Position 4

Lewis Aldridge Joinery Leaf Handing Standardisation 

Left Hand 

Right Hand 

Hinge Configurations