Hold A Door Open With A Coin

Doors that shut on their own are designed that way for a reason: to prevent the spread of fire and smoke in a building. Sometimes you need to hold the door open temporarily, though, such as if you're moving furniture through the doorway. If you're in a pinch and you don't have a wedge on hand (the preferred method, see Warnings below) you can hold the door open with a coin.

Step 1 Getting The Supplies

Come on, if you don't have a quarter you are seriously poor (Euros work too.)

Comments

[parkinsonr]

I have seen this done with a nickel, unfortunetly it was the nickel falling out that I saw how the door was 'magucly' staying open. Now I know the process as I couldn't duplicate it at the time. thanks for posting!

[90mp11]

There's some serious burning goin on there. If this is lifted from wikihow...shame on you.

The point is if you carry furniture out through a door that closes back onto itself, such as a fire escape, the penny will serve to stop the door closing completely so that the lockin mechanism will not catch.

I can see this would be useful in situations where fire extinguishers, rocks and door stops cannot hold the dooropen maybe?

For instance, when carrying a sofa etc. from one building to another through a fire escape, and don't want to walk all the way through the building to unlock the door, or leave the door wide open for petty theives, the penny allows the illusion of being locked fora short amount of time until you need to reopen the door from the outside.

[georion]

Why bother--there are so many simlpler easier things to use to keep a door open---unless this has thievery in mind ????????>

[finfan7]

Why would you need this? Are you being overly obvious in an attempt to get into some place with an autolock? And if this is just so you can move stuff, Why not just use a rock? We used rocks frequently in highschool. Also this is an exact replica of a wikihow article.

[lemonie]

Do you lift all your material from Wikihow?

L

[dchall8]

Can you please show a picture of the door in the open position? It looks like you are sticking the coin into the flat metal parts of the hinge but your description falls well short of convincing me that the door is open far enough to move furniture through. With the cell-phone quality pictures all I can visualize is a door kept from closing all the way. And it looks like if you are on the wrong side of the door, you can't keep the door "open." What is the point of this Instructable again?

[lemonie]

It may be an alternative to using a fire extinguisher like most people do in these situations... L

[JakeTobak]

Why this is a bad idea:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VrCzsx-OxA