Door Stops

A door stop is the cheapest piece of ironmongery on a job and the one that prevents the most expensive damage. Without one, the handle drives into the plaster every time the door is thrown open, and on a heavy leaf that means a repair to the wall rather than a mark on the paint.

Floor, wall or hinge mounted?

Floor-mounted stops are the most robust but sit in the walking line, so keep them close to the skirting. Wall-mounted stops suit rooms where the door swings against a flat wall. Hinge-pin stops need no fixing into the floor or wall at all, which makes them the safe option on tiled or stone floors.

Choose the finish to match your door handles and hinges. For doors that need holding closed instead of held back, see magnetic latches and flush bolts, and for controlled closing see door closers.

Floor mounted, wall mounted or door mounted

A floor stop is the strongest option and the one to use where a door swings into open space, but it has to sit far enough from the leaf to catch the door rather than the person walking through it. A wall mounted buffer is tidier in a hallway and protects plaster where a lever would otherwise strike it. Door mounted stops and cushion buffers are the least intrusive and are the usual answer on cupboard and wardrobe doors where nothing can be fixed to the floor.

Match the finish, not just the function

Stops here come from Zoo Hardware and Atlantic UK Hardware in the same finish families as the levers, so the stop can be specified alongside the door handles and escutcheons in the same room instead of being bought as an afterthought. On a fire door, a stop must never be used to hold the leaf open. If a door genuinely needs to stand open, that is a job for a controlled door closer and the rules set out in our fire door guide.

Fixing into the right substrate

Into timber, screw straight in. Into plasterboard, use a proper hollow wall fixing rather than a plug, because a stop takes a sharp impact load every single time it is used. On tiled or engineered floors drill with the correct bit and do not over-torque the fixing. The rest of the ironmongery range sits in door hardware, and for upkeep read how to fix a loose door handle.