Hinge positions.

[RF Lighting]

Greetings all.

I have a few doors to hang shortly. They are all 44mm fire doors, and a couple of them are 915mm wide, so they are quite a heavy door.

From what I understand, it is best to have one hinge near the bottom, and two hinges near the top of the door to take the weight, rather than three hinges equally spaced.

Is there a standard spacing for this arrangement, or would I just do 6" from the top, 9" from the bottom as normal, and then say another 6" from the top hinge to the lower top hinge?

Thanks very much for reading.

 

[JohnD]

I haven't got a reply to this but am watching carefully as I want to have some replacement fire-doors soon. I am getting the 6-panel smooth moulded ones from Wickes which I like the look of

I hope to have them on lift off hinges as they are so heavy and difficult to hang or adjust or get off for repainting.

I understand that joiners like to use a measuring stick for the hinges and locks so that (apart from individual trimming) the doors are interchangeable

 

[^woody^]

There was a recent thread about the fitting of double hinges at high level.

I'm still not aware of the requirement or actual benefit of doing this

 

[RF Lighting]

They seem to do it on all the commercial sites I work on these days.

I wonder if it's just one of those things that some big organisation like the NHS specced, and people have just got into the habit?

 

[masona]

I'm still not aware of the requirement or actual benefit of doing this

The 2nd hinge from the top supports the top hinge, we only do this on heavy doors

Hinges positioning below >

http://www.gai.org.uk/cop/system/CoP_Section_02.pdf

Most important of all is the hinges should be non-combustible with a melting point of greater than 800C.

 

[RF Lighting]

Thanks for that.

I've got proper fire rated stainless steel hinges, so I should be good to go

 

[^woody^]

That guide states that "there is a practice" of fitting two hinges at the top, which is a totally meaningless statement. There is also a practice of dipping digestives in to a cup of tea

"The practice" does seem to be some sort of urban myth where it was done somewhere for some random reason and now people seem to think that it is the way to do it

 

[squowse]

well it will help spread the weight of of the door into the frame - like a double sized hinge with twice as many screws i suppose.

it will have more leverage to support the weight than if it was half way down in the middle position.

on a solid wood door, the middle position may be preferable to help resist the door stile warping.
this would not apply to fire doors that are composite/chipboard construction.

 

[gregers]

read the bumpf that has come with the doors,it normally tells you what they expect,if you follow this then you cant go wrong just make sure you have the correct grade of butt for the weight of the door.

 

[cmother1]

I don't know why woody is so against this idea. It makes eminent sense to me if you're dealing with a heavy door. Although a lot of the force of a door is vertical shear, by no means all of it is . The wider and heavier the door the more horizontal force it will exert, hence 2 hinges high up to reduce the risk of screws pulling loose. There's also a fringe benefit of reduced hinge wear if the load is spread over 3 hinges rather than 2.

 

[^woody^]

I am against it as it seems a stupid idea, and I have not seen any actual/factual proof that this is any better than a traditional mid-hinge fitting.

All the arguments for dealing with extra forces etc apply equally to a centre hinge arrangement

The loads go down the stiles and across rails etc and a centre hinges deals with these just fine.

 

[squowse]

put it this way - if you had 3 hinges in the traditional fashion, and you had to remove one. obviously it would be the middle one, it's taking the least load.
up at the top it is working with more leverage against the door trying to pull away. in a composite door construction the middle rail doesn't exist in the same way. it will act like a panel.
as i said. if the door is a frame in solid wood, i'll put the 3rd hinge in the middle definitely.