A small hardboard escutcheon ...

[spuorgelgoog]

will conceal where the power drill went out the side of the door when I was mortissing in a new latch barrel.

And drilled the spindle hole in on the bottom line of the latch instead of the centre line.

I thought it would be a simple job to update the door handles, but the new ones are knobs and the old ones are levers. The knobs are too close to the edge of the door, so I have to fit new latches. The longer latches are too long to fit in the stiles without bursting out into the panels, so I have to make completely new latch holes.

The handles are also sprung, and two sprung handles and a latch is too heavy a spring action, so I am manually despringing one or both of the handles in the hope of getting a lighter action.

Now considering that putting in a new central heating system myself might be a touch ambitious ...

Owain

[tabbypurr]

:) It takes many years to start getting realistic about time estimates

NT

[newshound]

Been there, done that. With "modern" doors it can be a surprisingly tedious job replacing handles and latches. My long term plan was to replace all these doors with proper wooden ones, but I have never quite got round to it.

[dennis]

Did that 30+ years ago, its easy. Only five zones. Plastic pipe makes it easier and there hasn't been a single failure of the plastic stuff yet.

[Roger Hayter]

I really sympathise! I promised my wife new knobs for the front door without thinking through the differences between knobs and handles. I got somewhat longer latches, but without having the knobs below knee height we are left with a knob uncomfortably near the frame. But just about usable. Since my knobs are unspriung, I had the opposite spring problem; had to get a latch with a much heavier spring to make up for the loss of sprung handles. It seems cheap modern doors are really unsuitable for knobs, which is perhaps why one doesn't see them in new houses.

A simple job turned really difficult.

[tabbypurr]

Knobs are a problem for some disabled & if you have your hands full.

NT

[Marland]

Don?t forget the cats , a surprising number learn how to jump up and pull a handle down to open a door.

GH

[Brian Gaff]

It seemed in the past that there were many more sources and many more designs of handle sets etc than appear now, so when you take off an old one the new stuff never fits or leaves a bit of a hole out the side of the handle set. Bah humbug. Brian

[spuorgelgoog]

I think most of America now mandates levers for accessibility reasons.

Apart from one state which mandates knobs.

Bears can't do knobs.

Owain

[spuorgelgoog]

I'm glad it's not just me.

And of course the new knobs are only affixed by 3 screws through the rose - except that one of the screws is almost bound to foul on the latch barrel and not go in full length, and it's impossible to drive them in straight because the rose is smaller than the knob so the driver has to go in an a nangle.

The old stuff with grub screws into tapped holes in the spindle really was a better design.

Owain

[spuorgelgoog]

I am tempted by Rifeng pex-al-pex and crimped fittings.

Owain