A brief history of door knobs

A Brief History of Door Knobs People really are innovative and amazing creatures. Early on in our history, we discovered that a simple wooden bar across the inside of our doors could increase our safety and security almost exponentially.

Plus, sturdy wooden external door pull handles made it much easier to open these heavy wooden doors.

Still, these wooden bars presented a few problems. They could be broken through with an axe or a battering ram or lit on fire thus eliminating our safety and security pretty quickly. Eventually, these wooden bars were replaced with iron bars but, these too could be broken through with the right tools and effort. Eventually, some of these innovative people invented other locking mechanisms but these were often too impractical for common use. Plus, most of the time, only the rich could afford the luxury. Then came...the DOOR KNOB! Early door knobs were fashioned from iron and other pure metals like copper and even occasionally gold. Sometimes, they were decorated with glass or crystal – beautiful for sure but, also, unreliable and rather fragile in the grand scheme of things. As you might expect, there were problems with these original door knobs too. Glass and crystal can chip fairly easily and these substances are always needing to be polished. Gold, copper, and other softer metals would chip and scratch very easily. Even old reliable iron is prone to rust. So, even though these original door knobs were less expensive and more reliable than the old wooden bar trick, they were still not reliable and sturdy enough. Then, along came stainless steel door handles!

You might be wondering what is so great about stainless steel door handles. Well, let me explain it a little bit.

Stainless steel door handles are considerably stronger than door handles made of unalloyed metals – stainless steel does not rust for one thing so you will never have the rust-related damage that you will with iron door pull handles. Stainless steel is incredibly difficult to scratch, dent or chip so it will never get all broken up like a glass or crystal door knob. One other nifty tidbit about stainless steel is that it is resistant to germs of any kind.

Another advantage of stainless steel door handles over other kinds of door handles is versatility.

Stainless steel can be molded into a variety of shapes and sizes so we have more styles of door pull handles to choose from. Stainless steel can also be manufactured in a variety of colors and finishes, depending on what metals are mixed together. This gives us more colors to choose from when we go to design our doors.

My last point is that stainless steel door handles are easier to maintain than other types of door pull handles. With iron and glass door pull handles, it was a requirement that they be polished and oiled frequently in order for them to continue working properly. With stainless steel, your door pull handles are somewhat self-lubricated thus requiring no regular oiling. Plus, all you need to clean stainless steel door handles is a soft dry cloth – no polish required!