My neighbour had this spring put on the back garden gate by someone, to get it to be self-closing.
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There is not enough compression on it to keep it completely closed and to stop it banging when the wind picks up.
I seem to remember seeing springs like this placed at a more vertical angle, but cannot think of a logical reason as to why this might be so.
Basically it needs some more compression on it to completely hold the door fully shut, (it stays open by about 8mm ). But its surprisingly strong and I cannot compress it enough and then put the screws in, to get it to have enough compression to completely close the gate.
Also I wonder why the ends of the spring have these holes, which are only about 3 mm deep. The holes are not there to turn anything around as there are no threads on it anywhere. And the spring can rotate freely at each end.
Novice grateful for advice for a more effective solution.
You are absolutely right, the spring attaches in a near vertical position with one end on the post and the other on the gate. The holes you refer to are for tensioning the spring. There should be some steel pins that push through the holes to prevent the spring unwinding again, you also use the holes for the purpose of twisting it to get that tension.. As you apparently have no pins you will find that suitably sized (and depointed) nails are quite effective.
The spring works by spiral compression. It is ALWAYS mounted vertically. When you buy the spring new, you get a pin and a hardened steel rod that you can use to twist by inserting in the holes. You need to look at it and figure out how to mount it so that when you open the gate, it makes the spiral twist to condense, and not twist to open the spiral. They will work for a short time that way, but the spiral is untwisted causing stretching, and people just keep adjusting it more and more until failure.
I have mounted at least a hundred of these on pool gates. They are not complicated, but there is the proper way to do it, and it is illustrated in the instructions. It may be there on their site, too. On mine, I welded
99% of them, but they CAN be mounted on wood. The screws are commonly the failure point. So, use hefty screws and drill into something substantial.
It goes something like this: you figure out how to mount it so that opening the gate compresses the spring spirally. I have always mounted them with the free spinning end holes up. You will notice that one end SHOULD have a short rod that is pressed into a hole and you can only turn it so far; the other end has just the holes, and you can turn it round and round. You mount it with screws or by welding it on. You take the rod and twist the spiral closed with the 4" rod and put the 1/4" pin in the hole so when you release the rod the pin is held in place by the spiral compression. You take the rod out, and move it to another hole, twist it back, remove the pin, twist the rod for more spiral compression, and reinsert the pin. You repeat this as many times as necessary to get the right amount of spiral torque necessary to shut the gate when it has been opened. IF yours doesn't have a pin on one end, you will need to put a pin on that bottom end as a stop, then adjust the top as described.
Be advised that they sell different sizes of Bommer springs, so you may need a larger one, or even two if the gate is big and the wind is high. Yours looks like an 8", or may be a 12", can't tell by the lumber there.
The way the spring is mounted horizontally is useless. It gives a little springback from bending the spiral. On a proper installation, the springback comes from the spiral compression of the spring in the proper direction, and tensioning is done with the rod and pin. You mentioned nothing about the rod or pin, so don't know if you have one or not. You can make your own pin, or use a small bolt, but the rod is made of cold rolled steel, and is very hard to bend. You will have to find something that will substitute if you have lost that. See if you can find the original packaging with instructions, rod, and pin(s).
HTH
Steve
visit my blog at
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A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
I fitted one like that - the peg that stops rotation was of too small a diameter; it was OK for a while, then there was a pingfuckit and a leaf died. A 5mm scre (I used a stainless stell one), slightly filed down to be a snug fit, is still there after a couple of years.
Great site, Mike. Far better than the pdf that I posted. I don't know why, but I always mounted mine with the adjustment on the top. I see that they put theirs on the bottom. Don't have one handy, but maybe there's a difference if you mount it outside the door or inside. It looks like he is using a SS Bommer spring. It's been a long time since I installed one.
Steve
visit my blog at
formatting link
watch for the book
A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.
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For some reason some makes (like this one) have very shallow holes so you can't put a pin right through. The one I had only had holes about 4mm deep. Made it rather dangerous to set.. You have to use a nail in one hole to turn it and for safety use long nose pliers to insert a short pin in another hole to stop it rotating back when you let go. The bar/pins that came with mine were useless. Too small in diameter to be a good fit in the shallow holes. Next time I'll probably drill them deeper.
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