Baby Gates

 

First, let’s look at the many types of gates on the market and how you can choose between them. You may have noticed metal gates, wood gates and plastic gates. Each has its own function and selling point, but first you must be aware that all gates you use to child proof your home must display a label on the box such as JPMA. This label is to the baby industry as NTSA is to car seats and the auto industry. They are a testing organization and a baby gate must meet certain standards to carry their label. Basically, there are two gate classifications, Installed Gates and Pressure Gates. Within a classification, all gates that carry their label essentially are the same in safety and ability to confine a child under two years old.  Thus, when you choose an installed gate made of metal over one made of wood, all you are buying is appearance and your own visual judgment of the gate.  The metal gates also have features that may make them more attractive for your installation, but from all safety standards, both gates will achieve the same results and offer the same level of protection. 

Installed gates are designed for openings that provide solid mounting structures and prevent the child from reaching dangerous areas. A good example of these locations is the top and bottom of the staircase.  And before you say “why the bottom of the stairs”, a crawling child will climb the stairs and try to stand up, only to fall backwards down the stairs and thus presents the same problem as a child falling from the top of the stairs.  While we are at this point of stair discussion, you should never let your child play or be taught to crawl up and down the stairs. It serves no useful purpose other than entertainment of the adult and child. A child exposed to this behavior will then have in its mind the idea it can crawl up any stairs it sees and you have now created a situation of an attractive nuisance where ever stairs exist.   As a general rule, a child should never be allowed on the stairs until they can walk and are reasonably stable.  They are never going to crawl up or down the stairs in real life. So, let them learn to achieve stairs status as they grow to the level they can accomplish one hundred percent safety on the stairs. Use a minimum of two years old as a standard place to start.  Most installed gates are purchased for installation on stairways, but you will soon find that none of the gate manufacturers want to be bothered with the details of the turned stair posts.  These mounting surfaces are definitely not compatible with most gate mounting hardware. As a homeowner, you are usually faced with either a wall or post at the top of the stairs and two posts at the bottom of the stairs. Compounding the issue is the problem of drilling into the post.  This will definitely leave marks that cannot be covered up when the gate is removed, unless the posts are painted.  The baby proofing industry has come to the aide of the parent who needs gate mounting at these locations. They have designed clamp on devices that clamp to the post and then provide a surface for the gate to mount to that is parallel and perpendicular to the post.  My only objection to these mounts is they are ugly and they provide additional and dangerous catch points for clothes of passing adults. There are other ways of solving this problem and one is very elegant while being reasonable in price and a good project for the homeowner that is handy with tools. You may contact the owner of this web site for details for the mount. It is made from two pieces of oak, purchased at any builder supply company. A little glue, some stain to match the banister and a couple of drilled holes will provide a first class mount that all will admire.  However, let’s look at the stair problem in a different light. Most stairs come into a foyer. From all practical purposes, the child should not be in the foyer as usually the living room and dining room are off this same location.  A child that moves from the rear of the house to the foyer quickly is lost from site and has a myriad of dangers he/she can get into.  Why not put a gate at the entrance to the foyer from the family room. Most homes have their family room, breakfast area, kitchen and laundry areas across the back of the house. If we seal off that area and place a pressure gate in the kitchen to dining room opening area, you will find that the gate is not needed on the front stairs. Further the child is now limited to the areas that are easier to child proof. More importantly the gate-mounting problem goes away and the entrance to your home is not cluttered with child proofing items to greet guests.  A similar situation may exist at the top of the stairs.  Everyone automatically assumes that the gate should go at the top of the stairs. Many homes have a hall leading to the stairs. By going a few feet down the hall, you can install the gate into the wall and eliminate the post gate-mounting problem all together. Every home is different, but you need to take a close look at alternatives to the standard approach of just placing a gate in the doorway or on the stairs.  This alternate concept to gate mounting will bring on a new approach to child proofing and provide the new mom with an answer that she never thought about when the baby arrived. There are two reasons for baby gates and the most important is not just safety, but mothers peace of mind and ability to return to a normal life through the day, not one of constant chasing of the child and finding that you cannot for a moment get up and go to the kitchen, let alone think about doing laundry.  So the second reason for a baby gate is to zone off the house.  This is usually done to confine the child to just the areas of the house mom spends most of her day in.  Once these areas are sealed with gates, then the areas are childproof. Now, mom will find that she can leave the child on the floor of the family room, walk to the kitchen and do her chores while keeping the child in sight at all times. She also has the added peace of mind that since the area is childproof, there is nothing the child can get into in the few moments she cannot react or respond to the child's activities.  The art of child proofing these areas will be the subject of other discussions on baby proofing and you can review them as an aide to determining your approach to child proofing.  Next, we have gates that are called pressure gates.  They have this name because they are held in place by pressure. Most people do not realize that a pressure gate could eventually sink into the plaster wall board or even dent in the pine facing of the door opening, requiring just as much repair work as covering up screw holes of an installed gate. Worse yet, they will be a problem directly proportional to the amount of times the gate is accessed, thus a pressure gate should be placed in a low traffic area. 

Installing Gates

Installed gates in the wall board or the door facing needs to be done properly.  Regardless of what you think or what someone may tell you, no installed gate should be installed into wallboard with just any type of wall anchor as it will not hold. In my fifteen years of installing gates in thousands of homes, not one wall anchor held more than six months.  The reason is; installed gates place considerable load on the wall at the hinge point. As an example, a four foot gate with only ten pounds of pressure on the open end of the gate will exert forty foot pounds of torque on the screw holding the gate hinge to the wall. That screw is less than an eighth of an inch in diameter. Forty foot-pounds of leverage on that size screw translates to 250 pounds per square inch.  Even pinewood has a difficult time holding a screw at that load, so never try it.  The best bet for mounting a gate to any type of wall is to buy a 1" x 3" x 36” popular board at a lumber supply house. You can simply mount the board to a wall stud through the wallboard, use 3" screws, or install the mount on the face of the door-frame and then mount the gate to that surface.  Popular wood is hard enough to hold the screws and not allow them to work out of the mount.  The surface area of the mount then spreads the entire gate load over the drywall area of the mount, which is 108 square inches or 1.4 pounds per square inch.   From thousands of gate installations I have done over the years, I have never had a gate come out of the wall using this technique.  If you are a handy man and have router tools, you can run a bead around the edge of the mount and paint it white to match your molding. Once installed, it looks like part of the woodwork and blends right in to the house decor. The same technique can be used to protect pressure gate mounting surfaces from damage and better secure the gate.

Information On How To Purchase...