correct ways to hang doors

[weg]

Anyone know if there are any 'rules' to how you hang a door?

We've just rehung one to open the other way -but still opening into the room- and even though it's more practical for it to swing the way we've hung it it still doesn't look right.

Could just be that we're not accustomed to that door swinging this way, but it has got me thinking how a carpenter or architect decides how a door should open.

Are there some 'rules', or is it a case of whatever appears to work?

 

[vaughan]

Generally external doors open inwards, so that the door can be broken into in an emergency.

Otherwise, it's whatever works.

It's interesting that older houses like Victorian up to 1920s used to have the doors arranged so that they blocked the view into the room to give privacy, and a few moments of notice that somebody was entering. That's why in older houses many doors open into the room rather than against the wall.

I bought a 1960s ex-Houso and its front door originally opened into the room rather than against the wall, so that the door functioned as a room divider so visitors could not see into the house from the doorway until they entered. Quite clever really.

At some stage the door was re-hung to open against the wall which resulted in the light switches being inaccessible when the door was open, because they were mounted on the door frame so that originally you'd open the door then feel for the switch near the lock as you entered.

 

[weg]

It's interesting that older houses like Victorian up to 1920s used to have the doors arranged so that as it was opened it blocked the view into the room. That's why in older houses a door may open into the room rather than against the wall.

The house was built in 1890.

The door we hung doesn't block the view of the room whereas all the others in the house do; explains then why it appears odd.

 

[vaughan]

Buy "opening into the room" I mean that the door dors not lie flat against the wall when open: like this ascii art:

_\ |

 

[BMan]

i did wonder why all the doors in my house opened the wrong way... (left/right) not (in/out)
being stone its too hard to swap the light switches to the other side of the door

 

[weg]

i did wonder why all the doors in my house opened the wrong way... (left/right) not (in/out)
being stone its too hard to swap the light switches to the other side of the door

We've still got the light switch issue to deal with .

 

[vaughan]

I had mine swapped over when I had the plasterers and sparky in for other work.