Mortice lock on a new bathroom door

[GI Joe]

Morning all,

We're fitting a new 4-panel Victoruian door to the bathroom, and are fitting a mortice lock.

Am I right in thinking it is a bad idea to fit the lock at the end of the crossrail? I started drilling about 6 inches above that (basically mid-height of the door) to fit the lock, and invoked merry hell from SWMBO who is adamant that the handle should be level with the centre of the cross rail. Admittedly the knobs on the other interior doors of the house (in situ when we moved in) are central with the cross rail, but surely fitting a mortice lock there would be a bad idea?

I need someone to reassure me that I'm not going crazy...

[nightjar]

Cutting away part of the joint holding the cross-rail is not a particularly good idea. However, it rather depends on what sort of mortice lock you are fitting and what you want from the door.

If the lock is something like this:

is going to take quite a lot of strength from the joint. However, the main concern about cutting into the joint is that it can make an external door more susceptible to being kicked open. Whether you need to keep the full strength in an internal door in the face of opposition from SWMBO and in view of the fact it will make the door handle look odd is another matter.

OTOH if you fit the bathroom version of something like this

impact on door strength is minimal and you still get the ability to lock the door from inside, but open it with a screwdriver from outside.

Of course, if you are not worried about being able to open the door from outside when locked, you could simply fit a bathroom rim latch, which only needs a small hole through the door for the handle spindle. It is probably because they have rim locks that the other doors have the handles where they do.

Colin Bignell

[GI Joe]

that someone wanted.

[John Rumm]

Much will depend on the construction of the door as well. For many doors these days they are made from a pair of surface skins and a stuffed wood frame inside. So the locks etc can go anywhere near the centre without there being any joints to compromise.

[nightjar]

Unless you want a combined door handle and bathroom lock mechanism on the same plate, which is not very Victorian, the locks I mentioned can take most handle types.

Colin Bignell

[The Medway Handyman]

Why would you want a mortice lock? What do you get up to in the bathroom?

Accepted wisdom is that it would weaken the joint between the cross rail & the side rail (can't recall correct terminology). However if its a modern cheap door the whole thing is basically cardboard on a frame. There will be a 'lock block' somewhere - which means an extra bit of wood to hold the lock.

Fit a bathroom lock that can be opened from outside.

[GI Joe]

This is the lock that fits the handles that were chosen...

The door wasn't exactly cheap, and there's no lock block to be seen.

It can be opened from the outside.

[Martin Bonner]

When you say "the lock", you imply that most locks won't fit the chosen handles. That surprises me, I am not aware of any door handles that don't work with a standard square rod through the lock.

[GI Joe]

The handle is attached to a plate. The lock is some distance down from the actual handle. It was either buy one of the long mortice locks or fit two smaller but separate mechanisms, one for the handle action, one for the lock.

Eg here: