When swung open, unhinged doors will hit and damage whatever comes in their way, such as your wall or furniture. So, you must know how to stop your doors from opening fully.
To stop a door from opening all the way, either install a wall stop, base stop, floor stops, hinge stop, door chain, or a door closer. Alternatively, try bending the hinge pin of your door or use chairs, shoes, or old pillows to improvise an obstruction.
In this article, I’ll tell you several ways you can stop your house’s doors from opening fully. I’ll also share when it’s appropriate to use each method, so you can pick the one that works for you.
1. Use a Wall Stop
Wall stops (also known as wall bumpers) are simple add-ons that protect your walls from getting damaged by door handles. As the name suggests, these stops are fixed to the wall next to your door at the exact point where the door handle would impact it.
Wall stops usually have a robust metallic body that keeps the stop from getting crushed between the door handle and the wall, and it has rubber padding on top that helps act as a bumper or cushion for the door handle to land on.
Since wall stops are small devices, they won’t do much to stop your door from opening, but they’ll definitely stop it from impacting your wall. This means you should only get a wall stop if you don’t want your door to open fully because it’s hitting and damaging your wall.
However, if the reason you don’t want your door to open fully is that there’s a piece of furniture you don’t want the door to knock over, or if you just wish for your door to stop opening halfway, this solution isn’t right for you.
If you’re not sure where to get a wall stop, try this Prime-Line Wall Stop (Amazon). It has a strong metallic base, and it’s super cheap. It’s also pretty durable and easy to install.
Once you get a wall stop for yourself, follow these steps to install it correctly:
- Hold the door and slowly open it all the way until the doorknob touches the wall.
- Take out a pencil and mark the exact point where the doorknob is touching the wall.
- Drill on this marked point and attach your wall stop here using the screw provided with the kit.
- Open the door all the way again to see whether you’ve positioned the doorknob on the wall correctly.
2. Use a Baseboard Stop
Baseboard stops are similar to wall stops, except they get attached to a lower point on the wall compared to wall stops. As the name implies, these stops prevent the door from hitting the wall by cushioning their impact toward the base of the door.
Typically, a metal rod gets attached to the lower side wall that the door impacts when it opens (inside the radius of the door’s pivot). The outer end of the rod (where the door will impact the rod) hosts a spherical magnet that attaches to the metal receiver on the door.
When the door opens, the receiver and the magnet make contact, and the length of the rod prevents the doorknob from impacting the wall. Additionally, the magnet prevents the door from rebounding. It holds it in position until someone pulls it away from the magnet.
Like wall stops, though, this solution is only suitable for you if the reason why you don’t want your door to open fully is so it doesn’t hit the wall. However, If you’re looking for a way to significantly limit your door’s pivot room, pick one of the solutions we’re about to discuss in the coming sections.
But if baseboard stops are right for you, follow these steps to install one correctly to your wall.
- Gently open your door all the way till the doorknob touches the wall.
- On the lower end of the door (about 5 inches above the floor), mark a point using a pencil.
- Drill a hole in your door and screw the metal receiver.
- Drill another hole at a corresponding point on the wall and screw your metal rod.
Once the two are drilled and perfectly aligned, test the door by opening it all the way and seeing whether the stopper correctly cushions its impact. Also, ensure that the doorknob isn’t touching the wall when the door opens all the way.
3. Use a Hinge Pin Door Stop
Hinge pin door stops are one of the best ways to stop a door from opening all the way. Unlike the other two solutions we’ve discussed above, you can use a hinge pin door stop to control precisely how much you want to let your door open. All you have to do is adjust the pin.
So, if you want a door to stop well before it approaches the wall next to it, get your hands on a hinge pin door stop.
As the name suggests, these door stops are installed at the hinge of the target door. You just pull the hinge pin out from one of the doors and put it back into the hinge such that it first goes through the door stop and keeps it in place.
These door stops have rubber padding on the side where it will touch the door, so your door doesn’t get damaged when you open it.
If this solution feels right to you, follow these steps to install a hinge pin door stop in your door correctly:
- Take a nail and place it below your door’s hinge.
- Push the nail up the hinge so that the hinge pin comes out from the top.
- Remove the hinge pin from the hinge.
- Insert the pin in the door stop.
- Put the hinge pin with the door stop attached back into the door’s hinge such that the stopper’s rubber padding faces the door.
- Adjust your door hinge to the angle at which you want your door to open.
If you want a visual walk-through of all of these steps, watch this super-helpful Youtube video I found for you. It will show you how to get the job done within two minutes!
4. Get Floor-Mounted Door Stops
Like other door stops, floor-mounted door stops prevent your door from opening all the way by obstructing its path. Unlike other door stops, though, floor stops give you a lot more liberty to choose how far your door can open.
All you have to do is fix a doorstop on the floor (either using a potent glue or drilling it in that position) at the threshold where you want to stop your door. Whenever someone opens the door, the floor stop will cushion the door and prevent it from going further.
Just make sure your floor stop is placed within the pivot radius of your door. Otherwise, the door will miss the stop and swing open all the way.
Now there are several varieties of door stops you can choose from. Pick whichever one you like. The varieties include:
Metal Floor Stops
Metal floor stops have a strong body, meaning they’re more durable than most floor stops. However, over time, their rubber padding deteriorates, and when it does, its metal body can damage the base of your door on impact.
Wedge-Shaped Wooden Floor Stops
Wedge-shaped wood stops are highly effective at stopping doors from opening all the way. As a bonus, you don’t have to buy one at all. Just take a piece of wood, saw in a wedge, and you’ve got yourself a wedge-shaped floor stop.
Magnetic Floor Stops
Magnetic door stops lay flat on the floor at the threshold where you want your door to stop. A metal sheet is attached under your door’s base such that it would align with the magnetic floor stop when the door is opened.
When the door reaches the threshold, the magnetic pull holds the door in place, and if you really want the door to open all the way, you’ll need to apply more force.
Rubber Floor Stops
Rubber floor stops cushion your door and stop it from moving forward at the threshold where you place them. They’re great because they don’t do any damage to the base of your door, but their downside is that they deteriorate quickly over time.
Hook Floor Stops
Hook floor stops prevent your door from opening all the way. In addition to this function, you can hook the door to the hook floor stop to keep it from closing.
You can fix the stop with the hook on the floor, ensuring the rubber is facing the door. You can then attach the hook mount to the bottom of your door. When the door approaches the threshold, you just take the hook from the floor stop and attach it to the hook mount on the door. Your door won’t move back all the way unless you unhook it.
5. Get a Door Chain
Door chains are perfect for people who want to stop outsiders from being able to open doors fully. They let the door open just enough for you to be able to see who’s outside (and exchange small items with them) but not enough for them to be able to enter without you removing the chain from the door’s hook.
This is why door chains are more commonly used for home entrance doors as opposed to other doors inside the house or apartment. But if you want, you can still use one for your bedroom.
The downsides of this solution include the following:
- Each time you decide to let someone into your room, you’d have to get up and remove the chain from the door’s hook.
- Over time, as your door gets opened and stopped by the chain, the chain hook will damage the door where it’s planted because of the constant yanking.
Still, it’s more secure than almost any other we’ve discussed so far, so if your priority is security, I would definitely recommend getting a door chain.
Once you get one, here’s how you can correctly install it in your room:
- Take the chain hook and hold it about an inch above your door’s handle.
- Mark the hook’s holes using a pencil
- Use an appropriately sized drill to make holes in the marks.
- Use nails to screw the chain hook in that spot.
- Drill holes for your chain mount on either the door frame or the wall at the same level as the chain hook.
- Screw the chain mount onto the wall.
- Pull the chain from your chain mount and put it in your door’s hook, and the next time someone tries to open your door, they won’t be able to get in.
If you want a visual walk-through of all of the steps we’ve discussed above, watch this Youtube video. It will take you through the process step-by-step:
6. Bend the Door’s Hinge Pin
If your door swings open all the way on its own, it means its hinges weren’t installed properly. You can stop your door from opening like this by taking out its hinge pins and bending them a bit.
Here’s how:
- Close the door
- Use a nail and a hammer to remove one hinge’s pin.
- Put the pin down on some solid ground and strike it in the middle using a hammer.
- The hammer should bend the pin slightly. Don’t go overboard. Otherwise, you won’t be able to put the pin back into the hinge.
- Repeat this process with all of your door’s hinge pins.
Alternatively, you could also watch this Youtube tutorial. It will visually explain the steps to you in under three minutes!
7. Invest in an Automatic Door Closer
Automatic door closers work by storing the energy used to open the door and then releasing that energy (in a controlled manner) to close the door automatically. One part of the device gets attached to the frame of the door, and the other part attaches to the door itself.
When someone opens the door, instead of swinging it open the entire way, the door only opens up till the point where they hold it. Once they let go, it automatically goes back to its place and closes.
8. Improvise an Obstruction
As a temporary fix, place any large object behind your door to stop it from opening fully. Most people use chairs for this, but since chairs are hard objects, they can damage your door on impact.
Instead, I recommend using an old, soft pillow to create an obstruction. The reason why pillows are ideal is that they’re large enough to stop your door from opening too far and soft enough not to damage your door in any way, even if the door is opened with a lot of force.
Final Words
To sum up, there are many different ways you can stop your door from opening all the way. Some of them are easy to implement while others require more work. Pick whichever solution best meets your requirements and get your issue resolved today!
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