Door Handles - How To Chose The Right Type Of Lock Choosing the right door lock for your door and one that will work with your door handle trim can be a daunting task even for the seasoned design professional. It doesn’t help that within the door hardware industry many terms like lock, latch, and deadbolt are used interchangeably and often without a complete prefix to identify their use. So I have tried here in what will be the first in a series of posts, to provide definitions for commonly used terms.
Willow Door Knob
Latch – this term is so generic it is of little help unless it is described more fully. So consider what you are using the latch for, is it going to simply hold the door in place when it meets the door jamb, is it in other words just a humble devise that closes the door? While this is a latch it will often be referred to as tubular latch. A tubular latch is most commonly used for interior doors that you do not need or want to lock, they work either with a door knob or a door lever and the act of turning or depressing the handle releases or extends the latch “ tongue” into the door “strike”. Strike - This is the metal plate that covers the cut out area in your door jamb that the tongue of the latch fits inside thereby keeping the door closed. When you push down on the door lever the tongue is retracted from the strike and the door opens.
Latch bolt/deadbolt –here the latch is doing more than simply closing the door, with this latch we can “throw” the bolt part of the latch so that it keeps the door fixed in the jamb, so the door is now locked. The bolt will be thrown by a turn piece. This is a commonly used for bathrooms or powder rooms that you lock from one side. However, if you do decide to go this route you should make sure that you have a release hole and release key so that you can open the door from the outside in the event of an emergency. The “key” here refers to a simple key essentially a narrow shaft of metal that is inserted into the deadbolt through the hole on the outside of the bathroom door. Passageway versus Privacy latches - These are commonly used terms with names that define their use. A passageway latch is simply a non-locking latch as described above. The privacy latch also called a privacy tubular latch is the same latch but a small pin can be pushed through the latch to keep the tongue of the latch fixed in the jamb, now the door is locked. The same pin can be used to release the latch, allowing the door to open. Most privacy latches are designed so that the pin that locks the door can be released by the turning the knob or depressing the lever on the inside of the door. In the next piece in this series we will be reviewing how keyed cylinders are used with deadbolts and how they are used.