Door closers: ubiquitous, yet unloved and often maladjusted 

If you're wondering why I didn't buy a second one to take apart, objects with strong, compressed springs in them are terrifying.

This guy could probably get me to watch a two hour video on packing peanuts.

13:35 Pro-tip on this point: if the door stays open after adjusting DO NOT attempt to forcefully shut the door. The oil will compress and the valve will explode, shooting gross oil everywhere. Ask me how I know this.

20 minute video about actual *door closers* shows up in my recommendations, and yet as soon as I see the channel name, I know it's somehow going to be the most fascinating thing I see all day. You, sir, are a master of your craft.

People in my apartment complex always let the hallway doors slam shut and my dog barks every time. Just took a screwdriver down the hall and fixed this. Thank you!

"this is why you need a weird obsessive nerd somewhere on your staff" I feel oddly validated all of a sudden

Broadcast worker here! Our studio doors swing fast and latch slow. That way the studio is quickly sealed from outside air and noise, but the slam can't be heard on microphones.

It have been 30+ years of life without knowing the engineering and complexity of closing a door. Today, this channel changed that and I love it.

A warehouse holding a pinball machine, the World's best toaster and the Ark of the Covenant.

Fun Fact, working in TV on sets we usually adjusted the speeds backwards. For continuity we want the door to close as quickly as possible to reduce the odds of cutting from shot to shot with a door closed different amounts. We set the latch speed to as slow as possible for the sound department to make the door closing quiet.

As a commerical locksmith you would not BELIEVE how many calls I get that say "our door is slamming/our door is not latching" that require about 2 turns of a screwdriver to fix and cost the customer $300+. Everyone who owns, rents, or manages a commercial building should know how to adjust a door closer. Edit to add: another key reason to have a hydraulic or spring closer is that aluminum storefront doors are absolutely heavy enough to shatter the glass if for example thrown shut by a gust of wind or allowed to swing downhill in an unlevel doorframe. Even a minor slam, if it happens to that door dozens of times a day over the course of years, can also cause the early death of expensive locking hardware.

Legitimately life improving video, my neighbour has been complaining about my front door slamming since before I moved in and the landlord never did anything about it. I've just adjusted the speed of my door closer and it no longer slams.

As a locksmith I was going to chime in a bunch of times with stuff I thought you had missed but by the time I finished the video you had covered pretty much everything. Very thorough, well done.

The temptation to take a screwdriver/alen wrench and adjust all of my apartment doors so they stop slamming on me when I'm trying to do my laundry at 11pm at night is strong.

"For storing two of them" was simultaneously unexpected and made complete sense

We've just had a few of these installed at work to block customer access to the warehouse and office. On Friday, the boss and I were trying to figure out how to adjust the closing speed because the installers left them so that they close awfully quick and slam so violently they shake the entire wall of the office and shake the door open pin latch (I'm sure it has proper name, but I cannot think of it, the one that goes into the floor to hold it open) so hard it falls closed and then drags on the carpet. So, tomorrow, I'm going to walk into work, grab my LTT screwdriver and fix them thanks to this fortuitously timed video. And, I will probably leave the swing speed mostly the same but crank the latch speed right down as they too have no latch (by design, they're just a discouragement at present and will get electronic locks if they ever do have latches added), lower than the swing just so they close nice and quiet and gently, while the door open time isn't that big of an issue for us.

You've now successfully explained my long-dormant curiosity over the little magnets that held open my school's doors. Checking another one off the list.

Apparently revolving doors became rather desirable when skyscrapers became a thing. An open door at ground level, an open window tens of floors up, and lots of loose paper between the two was a great way to demonstrate convection currents, with hilarious results.

“That’s why you need a weird obsessive nerd on your staff” Absolutely true! The really cool things I’ve done at my various workplaces over the years to improve all the little pieces of technology and make sure things function as intended. Having a weird nerd who knows how to deep dive into something simple with a goal of understanding it is such an under-valued and under-utilized capability.

I paused the video halfway through, grabbed a screwdriver, and properly adjusted my door closer. Now it no longer slams shut and allows me to pass through a gate easily with my bicycle. Thank you!

Quarter million views within eight hours of being uploaded. A video about a device that makes doors close slowly. This has got to be one of the best channels on record.

“It’s really just called ‘fire place’ huh?” got me 😂

As I was watching this I got an email from the last hotel I was staying in, requesting a review. I think I'll send them this video in the "What could we do better?" section. Preach it brother, slamming hotel doors are the bane of travel.

Oh man as a hotel engineer this is great to know. I get tons of work orders from guests complaining about doors slamming all night. Now I know what I can look at to fix that.

Oh yeah, I've been looking forward to this one! ☺️👍

This went into immediate effect. Went out into our apartment lobby and adjusted the mechanism to prevent it from slamming, and then sometimes the mechanism not engaging that keeps it shut. Bravo 🎉🎉

Thanks for pointing out that you can remove the valves and leak hydraulic fluid everywhere. It's one of those systems where you can go from "is this doing anything?" to "it's broken forever" in a matter of seconds

After watching this I immediately went out and adjusted all the doors around my apartment complex. Just want you to know you're making the world a better place.

Thank you SO MUCH for posting this. I've been complaining about my apartment building's front door slamming shut for years, and the landlord had me convinced it was just because it was heavy. I walked down, adjusted the latch speed, and now it closes like a normal door.

The warehouse for storing "two of them" makes me believe you keep your other jokes in storage as well.

4:14 “Fire, it turns out, is bad” The delivery of that line was absolutely priceless lmao

Wow. Just wow. I'm a Sr. PM for a commercial GC, who's managed the installation of thousands of doors. All I have to say is that I'll be trusting every word that comes out of your mouth. I already did before, but this video was so accurate that I'll never have a second of hesitation in the future. Amazing job.

I love it when things are adjustable! It's like reaching a higher level of consciousness when you figure out there's a solution to one of your pet peeves in everyday life. You start seeing your surroundings in a new light.

I'm glad you mentioned HVAC pressurization issues. Adjusting exterior door closers and fixing pressurization issues has been at least 10% of my 25-year building engineer career. 😊

Automatic Door / fire door tech here. You did a great job of explaining this. Fun fact, those handicap doors use a spring to close but most control the closing speed by using the motor as a generator and placing a load across it to make it harder to spin. That way they will close smoothly even if the power fails.

Fun fact: a small enough closed room also creates a pressure imbalance when closing the door. Whenever i close my dorm door with the window shut, it bounces off the latch because of the slight underpressure created by the closing action itself.

I am neither a facilities manager, nor a person who works in the building in question, but I do live there, and both the front and back doors are CONSTANTLY slamming! I am going to put this knowledge to the test immediately today.

I literally stopped the video 4 minutes in and went to adjust the door closer on the room to my door. It no longer slams at super sonic speed. THANK YOU. ❤

When I moved into my apartment, every door in the public spaces slammed shut 24/7 with zero slowing. Within 2 days of this at 2am I got up and with a screw driver adjusted all ten of them which took only about 15min, and since then they all close silently. I never told another human being about this. This seemed the place.

Thank you so much for this video! I was working in an office close to a stairwell with a firedoor. The door was closing sooo violently that my desk was shaking. It was sooo loud. It was closing so violent in fact that the door handle started to fall off. I complained. The custodian came. Looked at it and explained to me: "Its a fire door, it's supposed to close like this". The audacity!! 30 min of online research. Learning about swing and latch speed. Plus an allen wrench from my bicycle repair kit. Presto. The door closed soft like a whisper. Thank you for shedding light on the mechanism and making this world just a bit more quieter.

Sitting in a hospital ER room, the door wouldn't stay open; a nurse pushed it back against the wall several times and said "I don't know why this one won't stay open, it's the only one in the department that won't." A little while later she came in again and pushed the door back against the wall, and this time it stayed. She looked at it in surprise, then looked at me, and I just shrugged. If she had inspected the door more closely before, she might have noticed the entire closer was loose, with all four of its mounting screws backed out by a quarter inch, and all four were now fully tightened. Somehow. 🤷‍♂️ 😂

literally just used this video to fix a problem my work has had for months. the door would never latch when we locked it so people always got in after we closed and literally 10 minutes into the video I already got it to work… thank you TC!

Okay, two things here (Additions, not corrections I note): Firstly, up here in Canada, the vast majority of places have manual "Automatic doors" (that is, activated by button for disabled people). Because it gets VERY cold, and motion activated doors would leak *so much* air. So here it's a matter of efficiency and cost. Second, my grandparents house in the UK had auto-closing doors, without any kind of spring or closer on them. They instead used what are called "Rising butt" hinges, where the shear line for the hinge is a slope rather than flat. Opening the door causes it to spiral up slightly as it opens, and the weight of the door then causes it to rotate back on the inclined hinge line. So the door itself is the closer.

This channel really helps me be a well rounded person.Learning About things I would otherwise just assume nothing about

I want you to know the positive impact you’ve had on my life. My apartment is next to the trash shoot, with my office being the adjoining wall. For years the trash door slamming shut has been a major pain point and this video inspired me to grab my tools at 11pm and fix it finally. Thank you so much

I have literally paused the video after you demonstrated adjusting the closer, went to fix the door that has been bugging me for over a year, and now I’m resuming the watching to learn how they work. 😅 Thanks, Alec! 👍

Thanks! My apartment building got a new door closer and the door wouldn't shut all the way. I had been worrying about security, but it was almost midnight when I watched this video, so I just went and adjusted it while no one was around, and now it shuts every time!

Your advice has helped me and my husband figure out why our apartment back door slams so hard. It's leaking that hydrolic fluid! Probably has been since the 90s. Thanks for the knowledge, as always!

0:07 "it's bothering me so much that I decided to shelve it for now. But, when one door closes -" Looks like we can expect a long video on shelves this year. You know how he puns.

I have given so many tours of the schools that I have worked in, pointing out doors that do not meet the ADA requirements and require adjustments, wishing I had a video like this that I could provide them with. This issue cost me the use of my left shoulder, many years of physical therapy, and tens of thousands of dollars. I have never encountered a maintenance worker who knew what a force gauge was or knew how to adjust these closers. It typically takes about 5 or 6 requests before any given maintenance worker has been able to understand and make these necessary adjustments. Thank you. The service this video provides is invaluable to me. I honestly wondered if anyone who wasn't disabled understood the need and function of door closers.

For 24 years I have had this problem and NOBODY knew how to adjust the swing. THANK YOU FOR POSTING...my neighbours also thank you for posting!!!

Thank you! You got a sub from me - I live in a building where these hydraulic door closers are in every unit, and mine always slammed shut with the thunderclap of a thousand monsoons. Now it closes ever-so softly. Had no idea I could make the adjustments like you demonstrated!

As soon as the video was over, I went over to my screen door that's notorious for taking an eternity to close, adjusted the door closer, and now it works flawlessly. Excellent video, 10/10. Also a side anecdote but as a small child I got my finger smashed in the door of a poorly adjust door closer at the doctor's office. They thankfully fixed my finger right there but ever since then all the door closers in that office have closed as softly as they're able.

Indeed, we do need a "weird obsessive nerd" on basically all staff teams, and to treat that person well with all their differences. You're a saint for taking the time to do something so specific, impactful, and yet easy. Thank you for sharing!

Scope Creep and Technology Connections, name a more iconic duo 😂 Edit: Trust me, I appreciate the constant exhaustive effort.

Chief engineer for a hotel - it blew my MIND when my boss showed me this as a tech. I need to double check all of mine now… additionally, Two things I did learn from this were 1. The ADA requirement for time to close and 2. The lawsuit regarding spring hinges. Love this channel!

I worked on theater maintenance, and I can confirm that the "hidden" door closers are adjustable. The whole mechanism is concealed in a cavity in the top of the door. To make adjustments you just grab a ladder and prop the door open. The screws face upward and easily accessible from the top.

13:51 "...which is A) unpleasant and 2) will break the door closer." These videos are plum full of easter eggs and I love it

Property Manager in Chicago, who rose to that position from Maintenance Technician - Your work has already been such a tremendous value to me professionally - I started to list the videos which made the greatest difference to me, until the list got overly-long, and too unwieldy. Thank you for Everything. But this is one piece I've already been so curious about, though has never directly-mattered enough to research in earnest. Thank you again for an entertaining education, which will make mine and many other peoples' lives better in an almost-imperceptible way.

Yeah… gotta be honest, as a fire alarm technician of over 15 years, your description about the fire alarm system tie in is 100% right. No matter what the topic you always do your research. I appreciate it.

During my last internship as a janitor, we had to re-adjust a bunch of them. So ofc I took 10 minutes a piece to adjust each of them to perfection. Me? Very happy. My employer? Less happy that I took so long. :')

I will take this video, show it to the GM at my hotel along with all the guests complaints and reviews that mentioned the door slamming and keeping them up. Your work will be put to good use.

The door just outside my apartment is always slamming and I feel so self conscious about opening it at night. You have saved me an ounce of sleep with this one!

I genuinely think this might be one of the most important RU-vid channels to exist.

I'm amused that the auto shop I used to work in had better-adjusted door closers than some hotels, just because I RTFM when installing them. Every door closer comes with a manual and lists the sizes of door it should be used on the packaging, extremely convenient! Also, replacing a door closer takes a lot of the guesswork out: you're putting everything in the same orientation and approximate position as the old one, so the S/L adjustment is pretty much all you need to figure out. So much easier than a first install. I highly recommend you always install replacement door closers instead of new ones. Of course, being a mechanic, I took the old door closers apart to try fixing them before heading across the street to Lowe's with the company card, but in addition to the seals being shot, the outside of the hydraulic piston and/or the inner walls of the hydraulic cylinder had been worn over time to the point that the cylinder basically was its own bypass valve - kind of obvious in that all that material was now dispersed through the hydraulic fluid - and replacing the black hydraulic fluid with new clean oil actually made it worse because of that. (Eyeballing the viscosity is probably not the best idea either, but I'm still convinced that, if the only problem is that you accidentally opened a valve too far and spilled it all, you can replace it with 85W-140 gear oil.)

The way you can take mundane objects and turn them into tv length documentaries is outstanding. Thank you!

Yet another DIY video to justify my Patreon subscription. Thanks, Alec! The front door on my apartment no longer swings closed like a guillotine trying to chop off my fingers!

been struggling with a "really heavy" door at work for nearly two years now, it always slams shut instantly with an ear-shattering bang, and it only gets worse on days with strong winds. the week after this video came out, suddenly it opens like a normal door! and doesn't slam shut! and i can hold it open for other people without them narrowly avoiding serious injuries! THANK YOU!!!!!!!

I'm a former locksmith and present maintenance man. Every one of us should have this as a training video. You even commented on my go to giveaway of a dead door closer (oil leak). Very impressed. I can't even describe how many normal maintenance crew cannot tune a door closer. Absolutely bang on. Fun fact about ADA auto door opener buttons. They're RF. I was convinced I had corroded terminals and it was in fact a dead battery. I didn't know they were basically little transmitters by battery power.

Thanks for fixing our door in less than 5 minutes. Me and my neighbors are very happy. Turning that screw half a turn turns out much more effective than the previous solution: "please make sure the close the door after you". This is just so good knowledge to have.

I watch a LOT of videos of many types on RU-vid. They range from woodworking tutorials to movie reactions to guitar or drum gear reviews to standup comedy to police body cams and much more….. but this video on door closers, as well as nearly any video from Technology Connections… just makes me happy. Thanks for doing what you do in the way that you do. 🙂

You explained all of it so clearly it took me 10 minutes to adjust my garage through door which was banging shut for a few good years. Thanks for that. It took a big pain off my brain. It was like a small warm stuck there, every time i heard it bang.

Dude, oh my god. I’m so glad you did a video on door hardware. I work at one of the largest hospitals in my region and I’m always finding slamming doors that need closer valve adjustments. I feel like nobody understands how important or nice it is to have properly adjusted doors. When the backcheck, sweep, and latch are perfectly adjusted, it’s such harmony. Also it’s important to have the proper spring adjustment as well to overcome HVAC stack pressure or allow the door to open with ADA-compliant forces. My whole job is door repairs (operated and non) and egress compliance, with a background coming from commercial door repair and locksmithing. If you ever want me to talk your ear off about interesting door solutions, master keying, etc, I would totally love that. By the way, the algorithm fed me an old video of yours a couple weeks ago about elevator chimes and ADA compliance and I haven’t been able to restrain myself from flexing that knowledge onto others. Thank you so so much for your quality content. Easily my favorite channel to watch on here. ❤

i just spent 23 minutes watching a video about door closers. i enjoyed it thoroughly

14:18 That Latch Speed Bypass design is so clever. I appreciate your clear explanation of it.

When I worked in a hotel, on a quiet Sunday evening, I'd take the receptionist into the coatroom. We weren't adjusting door closers. What a different upbringing we had!

21:31 Since we love annoying little details here, “damping” is the word to use, not “dampening”. You damp vibrations/oscillations or movement, but to dampen is to make something wet. Acoustic damping, shock-absorber damping, door-closer damping, etc. are what we’re talking about here.

Commercial building owner here. Few things are more satisfying than tuning up a closer to give that perfect blend of velocity and power so that nobody gets jabbed by a door handle, but the door will just click into its latch. Sometimes the closers wear out and can no longer be properly adjusted. When that happens, I eschew the single-screw devices and go for the 2 screw adjustment. If I'm feeling particularly splurgy, I'll look for the 3 screw adjustment. I always feel bougie putting those in, but in reality, the 2 screw units are just fine.

A retirement home near me has those airlock doors in which the next door only opens when the previous door has closed. It's great at keeping the elderly nice and warm. It also has an emergency button for, you guessed it, emergencies!

My dad was the facilities manager for a Catholic church built in the late 1940s. It had these on its doors but they were reminiscent of a fire hydrant in shape and only had one screw to adjust the speed.

I just watched a 23-min video about door closers 🤔 and somehow I was genuinely interested, says something about the quality of this Chanel. It's like the RU-vid version of modern marvels.

I'm that "weird obsessive nerd" on the staff! Several years back, I got annoyed with squeaky chairs in our main conference room. They were the same as our desk chairs (which also squeaked) so I figured out how to adjust and oil mine and then stayed after work one day to do the same with all the chairs in the conference room. What I didn't know was that there was a board of directors meeting the next day that was scheduled for that room. I ended up getting a gift card from my boss and until we replaced all those chairs, I was constantly being asked for help by coworkers to fix theirs as well! Oh, and after our maintenance people improperly reinstalled a door closer, I fixed it so that the door (which was for a secured area) would actually close and latch! I discovered this as I was leaving at the end of the day using the same door that the rest of our suite used to exit, but was the only one who was bothered by the broken closer and actually did something about it instead of leaving the door open / unlocked overnight!

As someone who needs to sleep in hotels for work related trips, I wanted to say; Thanks for taking the time, man.

Who knew I would enjoy spending 23 minutes watching a film about door closers. Great work :)

4:30 “Fire can’t go through doors, stupid. It’s not a ghost!”

The oldest self closing fire doors I have seen were from the late 1800's, where the door is held open with a weighted rope over a pulley. In a fire, the thin flammable rope burns, the counterweight no longer holds the door open, and they swing closed. No fancy stuff needed.

The fact that I have this in my apartment door and I never figured out how to adjust it, and then Technology Connections just made a video about it is just amazing.

Thank you for adjusting all those hotel doors. Literally improving thousands of people's lives!

THANK YOU!, I hope this goes viral. it needs to be posted as a clip on ALL social media. everyone hates slamming doors in hotel rooms, and basically every single hotel i've ever stayed at had slamming doors. soooo freaking annoying

'UL listed door closer bod, body." You so often needlessly have me cracking up in public I love it

A fast sweep speed is important for heavily used but secure doors. You want the door to close quickly so someone can't come through and prop it open for unauthorized access, but you don't want it to slam shut. Hotel doors are a good example of this. When you enter your room, this reduces the time someone has to follow you in.

I always enjoy a new @TechnologyConnections video. The scripts have the perfect balance of information, dry witty humor, and impartial objective discussion. Thank you Alec for all that you do.

As somebody that has installed countless various types of door closing mechanisms as well as having to go out and readjust them for people, this video is much needed. I get that some people might be intimidated by mechanical devices. But these are super simple and much cheaper for the customer to adjust than to call somebody like me out to do it for them. Cheers.

Awnings, motion sensors and now door closers?!? I think my adult life is way better than expected. I have learnt so much from you… I love having random facts to confuse and astonish my colleagues!! Thank you for making me the “random fact person “ at work… or at least thats what I think they call me…

Thank you! Oh my god the Laundry room door for my apartment complex has been triggering my anxiety attacks every time someone wants to do laundry. Now people are thanking me for fixing the sweep and latch speeds on all the doors. This is awesome.

I just started college and get fascinated by those door closer whenever someone enter the room

I have a fire door for my kitchen and I'm so grateful for this video. The years of the door slamming shut in the middle of the night are finally over

Happy to report that when my workplace replaced the doors, I properly adjusted the door closers to make them happy :) Thanks for taking the time to explain how they work!

Fun fact: Did you know that door closers can be set to open LESS than the maximum range of the door they are mounted to? I found out the hard way when I opened a door about 95° a little too fast and ripped the closers screws right out of the wood. :/

I think, that we love your videos so much, because they're as soothing, as this slow door closer. But as humoristicly sharp, as the Ledge Speed. Thank you so much for all the info, but also the wonderful delivery!