ADA Door Hardware Is Judged on the Installed Door, Not the Box

ADA door hardware is any handle, pull, latch or lock that a person can work with one hand, without gripping hard, pinching or turning the wrist, using no more than 5 pounds of force, with the part they touch between 34 and 48 inches above the finished floor. Those are sections 309.4 and 404.2.7 of the 2010 ADA Standards. Levers and U-shaped pulls are shapes that can be worked that way; round knobs generally cannot. This is a checklist for the hardware only. A complete doorway assessment also looks at the clear opening width, maneuvering space at the door, thresholds and closing speed, which this article does not cover. What changes the answer is where the door is: the living areas of a private home sit outside the ADA, so at home the standard is a checklist you borrow, unless part of the house serves a business that visitors walk into.

Four requirements, and the box can promise only one or two

Read the two sections together and you get four tests. The hardware must work with one hand. It must not demand a tight grasp, a pinch, or a twist of the wrist. The force to operate it can be 5 pounds at most. And its operable parts must sit 34 to 48 inches above the finish floor or ground.

In my reading, only the second test belongs entirely to the product. Force depends on the latch, the spring and how the set is adjusted on the door. Height belongs to whoever drills the door. One-hand use can fail because of something beside the handle, such as a deadbolt that has to be held while the lever is pressed. That is why "ADA compliant" on a listing does not settle the question for your doorway, and a lever or U-shaped pull does not establish compliance on shape alone. Ask which requirements the manufacturer documents for the specific configuration you are buying, then verify the height, the force and one-hand operation on the installed door.

The standards also limit how hard a door is to push or pull open: 5 pounds at most for interior hinged doors and for sliding or folding doors. Exterior hinged doors have no maximum in the standard, and fire doors follow the minimum their local authority allows. That opening figure leaves out the effort of retracting the latch, but the Access Board, the federal agency that writes the guidance on these standards, is clear that the latch hardware itself still has to meet the 5-pound limit.

At home, the ADA reaches only the rooms the public uses

The ADA's rules for buildings apply to public accommodations and commercial facilities, not to houses as such. The Department of Justice regulation that covers businesses in homes (28 CFR 36.401(b)) draws the line plainly. The part of a house used only as a residence is not covered. The part used for the business, or for both business and living, is, and that extends to what visitors use to get in: the front walk, the door or entryway, the hallways, and any rooms they use, including a restroom.

So if clients come to an office in your house, the front door, the hall to the office and the powder room they use are the doors where the standard may have real force. The bedroom doors are not. Which requirements apply depends on the covered use and on whether the work is new construction, an alteration or an existing facility, and client visits alone do not mean every doorway must immediately meet the new-construction dimensions. A building official or an accessibility consultant can tell you what applies to your situation. Multi-family buildings are a separate matter: the Fair Housing Act requires accessible design features in certain residential buildings of four or more units, under guidelines from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. State and local codes can add requirements of their own, so check with your building department or your installer before you treat any door as compliant.

If you are fitting out a house to grow old in, I think the ADA's door rules are still the most useful checklist available, precisely because they are written in inches and pounds rather than adjectives.

What a decorative door set passes, and what to look at twice

The lever is the easy part. A lever works by pressing down, so a closed hand, a wrist or an elbow can operate it, and our door levers from Emtek and Rocky Mountain Hardware are that kind of shape, though the shape is only the starting point. A round knob only opens if the hand closes around it and rotates, which is the motion section 309.4 rules out.

Thumb latch entry sets are the case people ask about. The Access Board's guide calls handles with thumb latches acceptable, while the advisory note to 404.2.7 says hardware that needs hand and finger movements at the same time takes more dexterity and is not recommended. A grip-and-thumb set is allowed, then, but it is not the easiest door to open. Where someone in the household has weak hands, I would put a lever on the front door rather than a grip.

The lock is the part of a good-looking set I would check first. The guide says latches and locks with small parts that need pinching will not comply. On a door set that usually means the privacy button or small turn piece on a bathroom lever, and the thumb turn on a deadbolt. A larger turn piece that you can rotate with the side of a finger is the better choice. Keys and cards that are separate from the lockset do not have to comply.

The requirement is the one in 309.4: every part must work with one hand, without tight grasping, pinching or twisting of the wrist, within the applicable force limit. Closed-fist operation is a useful extra recommendation, since the advisory to 404.2.7 says hardware that works with a closed fist or a loose grip suits the widest range of people, but the standard does not require it and it is not the compliance test. Try each part of the set one-handed without gripping, pinching or turning the wrist: the lever, the deadbolt turn, the privacy lock and the release. Anything that fails that is the piece to change.

Mark 34 and 48 inches on a story stick

Height is measured from the finish floor or ground to the operable part, meaning the part your hand works: the lever, the thumb turn, the gripping length of a pull. Plan the mounting height from the specified finished-floor elevation before you drill, then verify it after installation. A carpenter's story stick makes both steps quick. Take any straight strip of wood or stiff cardboard, mark 34 and 48 inches up from one end, and stand it on the floor beside the door's latch edge. Every operable piece should fall between the marks, including the deadbolt above the handle.

If the flooring is not down yet, work from the finished-floor elevation on the plans rather than the subfloor, and check again once it is installed. Tile over a new underlayment, or a thick rug at an entry, raises the floor you stand on, and hardware drilled to the wrong reference can end up lower than you planned. Outside, measure from the surface you stand on at the threshold.

Pocket and sliding doors carry one more rule

Section 404.2.7 adds a requirement only sliding doors face: when a sliding door is fully open, its operating hardware must stay exposed and usable from both sides. Flush cups on the faces of a pocket door slide into the wall with the door, which is why they are a problem here. An edge pull is not automatically the answer, either. It has to be exposed and usable from both sides when the door is fully open, and its operation has to meet the same requirements as any other hardware. That depends on the complete arrangement of door, pull and stop, so check how they work together on your pocket door rather than assuming one style solves it. Shallow flush cups that only fingertips can grip are also the kind of hardware the Access Board's guide recommends avoiding. Sliding and folding doors share the 5-pound opening force limit with interior hinged doors.

ADA compliant door pulls

A U-shaped pull can meet the shape requirement, and the Access Board recommends at least 1-1/2 inches of knuckle clearance between the pull and the door. The grip has to sit within the 34 to 48 inch range. On a door that latches, a compliant pull is not enough on its own, because the latch release also has to work one-handed; that is why door pulls on their own suit doors with no latch to release, such as a door held shut by a closer.

ADA compliant hardware

The phrase covers cabinets as well as doors, and the same operating test from 309.4 applies to both: one hand, no tight grasping, pinching or turning the wrist, 5 pounds at most. Doors add the 34 to 48 inch height range; cabinets follow the reach ranges in section 308 instead, which our guide to ADA compliant cabinet hardware covers.