What is a door closer? A door closer is a device commonly seen in commercial and public buildings. It enables a door to close when it opens.

There are three different styles in installing the door closers and they can be concealed in frame and concealed in floor or surface mounted. Door closers that are surface mounted have four different types. These are regular arm, slide track arm, parallel arm and top jamb mounted. Overhead type closers are mostly surface mounted, even though there are a lot of manufacturers that offers concealed models also like Norton 7900 overhead concealed and the Rixson 27 series. These are mounted inside of a pocket of the door frame though sometimes they can also be mounted in the floor under the pivot area directly and are concealed completely. Surface mounted door closer devices are the small boxes attached on the door's top corner. The arms that are jointed are the ones extended from the top level of the box on to the frame where this is bolted in.

You may also choose if you want it to be automatic or manual. The ones that we mostly see and are more common are the manual type door closers. Actually, there are over 70% of commercial building in North America that uses this type of door closer. This may be because manual types of closers are much cheaper compared to automatic ones.

How does a door closer works? Manual Door Closer - Either the jamb mounted or the overhead works on the air pressure principle and stored energy. This device is storing the energy that is being generated whenever somebody pushes the door open. After the energy has been generated, it will then use the stored energy to close the door automatically even without someone applying any force to close it. It is also equipped with hydraulic damper or spring mechanism which enables you to control its closing speed.

Automatic closers on the other hand use electrical power instead of the energy given by man. This kind of door closer is usually more expensive. This most of the time comes with a remote control for the device and a security alarm that you can turn on whenever you need it.

Door closers are important because it helps contain sounds from outside of the door, closes the door for security purposes and privacy. Whenever the temperature changes, wind or gusts a door may swing out of control and may be very injurious to very old and very young people. That is why the door closer can also be a safety device that can protect or reduce a potential injury to someone. Also a door closer is very important for fire doors because fire doors must always be latched and closed for it should only be used in case of emergencies only.