A glass entrance door at Test Gauge in East Dundee had a broken latch and a worn commercial push paddle. We replaced both: the latch so the door holds shut again, and the paddle so the door opens on a push instead of on effort.
On a commercial entrance the latch and the push paddle are two halves of one action. The paddle is what a person pushes; the latch is what lets the door go and then takes it back. When either is worn the door stops behaving, and people start working around it.
This door had both - a latch that had failed, and a push paddle past the point where it operated cleanly.
What was wrong with the door
The latch had broken, so the door was not reliably holding shut. Separately, the push paddle was worn, which on a glass door shows up as a push that has to be aimed rather than simply made.
Neither fault is dramatic by itself, and that is exactly why both get lived with. A door that closes most of the time, opened by a paddle that mostly works, is used like that for months before anyone calls.
Replacing the broken latch
The old latch came out and a replacement went in. The lock body is mortised into the door stile, so the faceplate comes off the edge, the old body is withdrawn and the new one is set in its place and checked against the strike in the jamb.
The test is not simply that the door shuts. It is that the latch enters the strike cleanly every time, without being lifted, pushed or pulled - because a latch that needs help is the same failure coming back.
Fitting the commercial push paddle
The replacement push paddle went on in place of the worn one, set square and flush to the door face. A paddle that is not square asks to be pushed at an angle, and once people are pushing at an angle the fixing works loose and the wear starts again.
The paddle and the latch are the two ends of the same mechanism. That is why they were done together rather than one now and one later.
Why the two go together
The paddle operates the latch. Replacing a latch and leaving a worn paddle in front of it puts a new part behind a tired actuator, and replacing a paddle on a failed latch leaves it operating nothing.
Both in one visit is also one disruption rather than two, which on a working entrance is the difference between losing a morning and losing two.
The opening at Test Gauge
The work was at Test Gauge, Inc., 1051 E Main St Unit 107, East Dundee, IL 60118, in Kane County.
East Dundee sits inside the Illinois part of our service area. Building codes are adopted and enforced locally rather than being one regional rule, so where an opening has to satisfy something, the requirement is confirmed for that address rather than assumed.