Q: We have handles from the first order that are not working properly A lot of the handles are loose and fall off and are on the ground when we see them within several days, despite our continued efforts to tighten them each time. Do you have any recommendations or parts to help out with this? Please see this image:
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A: Megan - I understand that of the 4 dozen or so pull handles that we supplied you recently you are having trouble with them being loose on the door but not necessarily loose on the door where the handles come off but that they start out by slipping on the door and then as a result of using the handles the bolts themselves become loose.
I wanted to take a moment and let you know that I had a productive conversation with your field engineer Michael earlier today and we discussed at length the problem of the handles coming loose. He told me that the size of the holes varied greatly door-to-door and somewhere just about a 1/4” some were 7/16”, some were 1/2” and finally somewhere 3/8" and initially he had described the whole size to be about the size of a quarter - but the point of the matter is that the holes varied greatly door to door.
Michael related to me that the hole size varies on all of the different doors and he also told me that the doors that you are installing this new hardware on already had holes drilled in them for different handles that came from a prior application or from prior management. Michael described to me the pulls that were taken off and I do know the manufacturer of that those pulls and it's a company headquartered in Japan and they do require some oversized holes.
The problem that you're having is the problem as a result of the holes simply being too large compounded by the fact that the holes vary in diameter.
The size of hole that these pull handles require is 9/32” (.2182”) which for all intensive purposes is a hair larger than 1/4”. This is the rockwood type 1 bolt package for an aluminum door as seen here:
Download File
Because the hole size required is so much smaller than what is drilled it would be understandable to conclude that no matter how tight you make the screws holding the handles together they're going to come loose because the bolts have too much room as a result of the oversized holes to simply slip and slide and become ultimately loose on the door.
Because Michael inherited those holes in those doors he most certainly did nothing wrong and because you inherited the part number from the prior company that gave you the initial quote I don't believe you did anything wrong either and that it was a result of the size of the holes not being discovered in the existing installation - - have you been aware that those holes were oversized you could have ordered a modified pull handle that would require thicker bolts that would have filled the holes better if not completely.
It's one of those situations where no one is at fault but we're all at fault... Moving forward what do we do?
I simply suggest that you come up with a bushing - similar to the item as seen here:
Download File
If you study the outside dimension in the inside dimension if you were to drill a consistent holes in all of your doors that would be about 17/32” in diameter - just a hair larger than 1/2 inch you would then be able to purchase these drill bushings and stack them together one at 1” and another at 3/4” so that you could very firmly fill in the holes all together and you would have no trouble whatsoever moving forward with handles slipping on your door installations.
please let me know your thoughts on this possible solution - Rich