Need Left Hand Night Latch door lock - help please

usignuolo

Following on from an earlier post, we have discovered that the problem with our new ERA nightlatch door lock is that it is designed for a front door with the lock installed on the right of the door (viewed from the street side).

Our lock is on the left viewed from the street, which is the right from inside. To install it therefore our builder turned it upside down. It still works, but to get out you have to lift the handle up, not press it down which is itself irritating as we are used to pressing it down.

To make matters worse the ERA lock has a special security deadlock feature, which activates a secondary bolt when the handle is turned anti clockwise from the inside. This is fine if the lock is installed on the left hand side of the door (viewed from inside) but hopeless, for us anyway, as our lock is installed the other way up. So everytime we press it down to go out, it activates the deadlock and we cannot close it behind us.

We have tried to get used to lifting the handle but it is driving us mad and we have decided to replace it by installing an alternative lock. Only we can't find one. They all claim to work on the right or left hand side of the door but in fact, the handles only work by being pressed down if you fit it to the left hand side of the door (when going out ).

Can anyone recommend a night latch security lock, for a glass panelled front door, which can be fitted on the right hand side (seen from inside) and where you can press the handle down not up to open it from the inside .

adaze

That's confusing.... So you have a door with a handle on the right (as viewed from the inside), but the mechanism is fitted the wrong way round. The lock itself will work either way, all your doing is changing the barrel. It sounds like the whole door mechanism has been fitted wrong. I can't beleive that the mechanism would change from side to side surely!?? (Just IMO) Is there no way of pivoting the door mechanism round (say a screw or something, on some internal mechanisms this is possible). Sure someone else will know...

jacko43

The lock should of come with instructions on how to change the handing look here to find your lock www.era-security.com/catalogue.html and i will try to help as adaze said it should be as simple removeing a screw and turning the bolt round

TDA10

Sorry, no help at all - my head hurts too much from reading and trying to fathom it out!!!

If you can take it off and leave someone at home whilst you go to a local ironmongers maybe they can advise?

usignuolo

Sorry I am not being very clear. The lock concerned is an ERA double locking night latch (conforms to British Standards).

My front door is hinged on the right, as you look at it from the outside. This means the lock needs to be fitted on the right of the door inside.

The ERA lock comes with a base plate with a lever handle which protrudes out to the right. Their website shows it fitted on a left hand door. Then to open the door, from the inside, you press DOWN the handle (clockwise). It has an additional feature, which is if you push the handle UP (anti clockwise), it activates a second smaller snib catch above the main one, to deadlock the door.

This is fine if you have a left hinged door. But if like me, you have a right hinged door you need the handle inside pointing to the left. The only way I can see to do this, is as the builder has done it, which is to install it rotated 180 degrees, ie upside down, on the right hand of the inside door. Then the instructions to use it are reversed so you have to press the handle UP ie the "wrong way" to open the door, and DOWN deadlocks it.

I can find no instructions on the ERA website about how to adjust for right hand doors (there is a bit about drilling the hole for the cylinder for right and left doors but nothing about how to adjust the handle and or locking mechanism to use it on right handed doors).

I have looked at it quite carefully and can't see how this can be done. The obvious solution is to have both left handed and right handed versions of lock but there is no mention of this option on the ERA website. Anyone care to offer any more information? it would be much appreciated.

Hope this is clearer.