Home Improvement → Interior door closer (closure?)

We have two pantry/closet doors that apparently aren't possible to close if you're under 18 years old. It's a phenomenon that my wife and I are both tired of....

What sort of door-closer options are available for interior doors ? At the big-box store today, the best option I ran across was one of these:

it seems you'll need something hydraulic so it don't close too fast. and it's not everyday I hear about parents under 18 years old with a 5 year old child!!.

Trust me, if the parents didn't close it, it would remain open 24/7 ! The thought of removing the damned door did occur to me !

Look for hinge pin door closers, they have them at my local lowes...
»www.lowes.com/pd_39339-1 ··· 8664_0__

Edit: Just read some of the reviews and it seems this product sucks, oh well, sorry.

I agree. With pre-school and primary kids, properly-rated and adjusted hydraulic is helpful yet spring-loaded will keep you busy with injuries for a while.

It's not clear to me if you are talking about lightweight cabinet doors with face or hidden hinges, or regular room doors with 2-piece hinges. You might check Rockler for some hydraulic/slow close cabinet hinges.

For room doors, I have a Ryobi Doorman that's been working well for over a decade, and two more of the identical closer that replaced it at Home Depot that I've had installed for about four years.
»www.homedepot.com/p/Univ ··· 02101639

These can be finely adjusted to close very slowly and quietly, so they will surprise no one, and their closing force is appropriate for a solid core residential door. (It always bothered me when I worked in commercial that maintenance people would lazily standardize on one closer and use if for everything from a 48" steel door to a 24" wooden French door.)

Semantics: A closer provides closure.

I have a single kitchen door (glass and wood) hanging with three hinges similar to this »inovo-door-hardware.com/ ··· -488-100 and has been there for 13-14 years now. It swings either way which may not be enough room for your pantry but there is no hydraulic and it works great for kids and pets.

This is a closet door, albeit narrower than standard. My wife reminded me that we should just get a hinge with built-in spring. The door to the garage has this. It looks like two of them, top and bottom, as they have allen-wrench holes where the pins normally are (for adjusting the 'tension' ?). This is a hollow-core door, maybe 18" wide, so I suspect I could get away (1) of these hinges (in the center).

I put 2 of these on a screen door, and they did the job just fine. Tension is adjustable.
»www.amazon.com/gp/produc ··· F8&psc=1

I would imagine an indoor version would be a little cheaper.

They're $12.99/ea at Menards. Not to be cheap, but I'm not paying that much ! I'll poke around on Amazon to see if they're cheaper.

Simple solution: Fine the next kid who leaves it open $12.99.

There is a family story about how my father had left his closet door ajar when he was in his teens. He was awakened by his father late at night to rectify the egregious situation of leaving a closet open which was not to my grandfather's satisfaction.

My father never left it open again, and we never did as children as well. And nobody spent $12 on closers.

Now, nobody got spanked nor beaten-but house rules (mandates) certainly were upheld.

Continual infringement on house rules would have resulted in corrective actions.

How about this?

»www.amazon.com/Stanley-H ··· 0004Z0YC

That looks interesting. It would be nice to find it locally though as with something that small, by the time you pay Amazon for shipping (I don't have Prime), it's probably the same price from Lowes, hardware stores, etc.

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Looks like I can get it at Menards (»www.menards.com/main/doo ··· 9687.htm) for less than Amazon ! It's not a Stanley brand though, but not worried about that.

Try this type of hinge: »www.lowes.com/pd_531343- ··· cetInfo=

Or this type: »www.lowes.com/pd_531343- ··· cetInfo=

You could always try a gate spring on the doors

I was thinking of something similar -- screen/storm doors normally have a spring and chain combination (at the top) that keeps the door from swinging open too far. I thought something similar to that was available. A gate spring also came to mind .... and I looked at them, but the ones I saw were either painted black or too large or strong of a spring.

I'm planning to try the spring(ed) hinge pin. Not sure if I need one or two, but given it's a hollow-core door and 18-24" wide, I would think that one would work. The Stanley version is rated for doors up to 30#. Menards carries National (something) versions and I'm sure they're rated the same or very close. This door probably weighs 5# !

Which reminds me: A local restaurant used to have a home-made closer on their front door. It was a rope and pulley setup with a bag of potatoes used as a counterweight.

This might work well for you because when the door stopped closing itself, you would know it's time to send the kids to the store for more potatoes.

If you look at the right side of the page, you'll see other sources to buy from. Some of those are just as cheap even including the shipping cost.

Got this today and no luck.... The 'pin' portion was way too tight - makes me wonder if there's a difference in the pin diameters between the pins on 3-1/2" hinges vs 4" hinges. It also came with no instructions. Looking at it, you probably figure it's simple - swap pins, use included wrench to adjust. Nope....

1) Close door, remove top pin
2) Remove cover
3) Remove lock pin, oil spring, legs, and pin
4) Spread legs
5) Insert in hinge
6) Tighten 3/4 turn (max)
7) Replace lock pin and cover