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Self-Closing Hinges Work to Keep You Safe

If you have a garage or use any gas operated mechanically in your home this is a great reminder article of the importance of these small devices. Self-closing hinges work to keep you safe from exterior hazards such as carbon monoxide. When in the garage if the door is not closed fully, this gas can travel into your home and possibly cause severe harm to you and your family. The severity can be as far as death. Every year, at least 430 people die in the U.S. from accidental CO poisoning. Approximately 50,000 people in the U.S. visit the emergency department each year due to accidental CO poisoning. These gases are released from your vehicle’s exhaust. This articles focuses on the hazard of the entry doors to a home from an attached garage.

One death is one too many when the incident is totally preventable. Self-closing hinges work to keep you safe because you have that additional assistance to ensure the door is closed after entering or exiting. There was a terrible incident recently where an entire household died while sleeping due to leaving a vehicle running in the garage and the door was left open allowing the carbon monoxide to flow into the home. This incident prompted me to want to do something to help educate others on this dangerous hazard. As a home inspector, this is a major defect that I have called out time and time again for homes. Personally, I like to leave the garage vehicle door open for a few minutes after parking to allow the gases to release outside before closing the vehicle door and though we have a self-closing hinge I still ensure the door closes before entering our home.

No matter what you decide extra precautions to make installing a self-closing hinge will help to keep you and those in your home safe.

Key Facts 

• Every year, at least 430 people die in the U.S. from accidental CO poisoning.
• Approximately 50,000 people in the U.S. visit the emergency department each year due to accidental CO poisoning.
• Red blood cells pick up CO quicker than they pick up oxygen.
• When you inhale CO, your body replaces the oxygen in the blood with CO.
• People who are sleeping or who have been drinking alcohol can die from CO poisoning before ever having symptoms.

In most areas, the entry door of an attached garage needs to be “fire-rated” and have a self-closing hinge. The purpose is to keep unsafe gases out and fires from spreading into the home.

Check out this review that Shawn left on Amazon.com for a self-closer hinge after his home inspector identified that their home was missing one.

Shawn Stern

“5.0 out of 5 stars Easy improvement!

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2022

Size: Pack of 2Color: Iron BlackVerified Purchase

One of the things that came up on the inspection for our recently purchased home was that the garage door didn’t automatically close as per code. I thought I’d need to get some ugly mechanism, but fortunately I saw self-closing hinges come up in Amazon’s suggestions. I checked the door more closely, and it turns out it already had a similar hinge installed; it must’ve just been broken because none of my adjustments seemed to work on it.

After some comparison searching, I landed on this 2 pack of hinges (one for the garage, and I thought it’d be handy to have another for our front door). So happy that I did. For ~$15 a door, these were super easy to install AND incredibly easy to set the tension: insert allen wrench, twist, insert pin. Repeat with more tension until you’re happy. These easily keep our front door from swinging too far open, and it auto-closes now. Same for that pesky garage door!

I appreciate that these pins have edges on the end, so you can easily readjust these down the road if the spring starts to get loose, etc. Most that I see on the market have you cut them flush, which sounds like a huge pain if you ever want to readjust the pin.

I can’t speak to longevity since I just installed these last night, but so far I’m exceedingly happy with these :)” – Amazon.com