1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates a new and improved door hold and release mechanism for use with conventional reciprocating pneumatic operated door checks or closers known in the art.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Door-checks or closers, as they are often referred to, such as the reciprocating pneumatic cylinder type used on storm, screen and similar type doors, automatically close the door after the door has been opened and then released. The door must be hand or mechanically held open while passing through or invariably the door will automatically return, possibly causing injury to the person passing through the doorway.
In order to hold a door open, while passing through a door equipped with the typical reciprocal door-check used on a majority of storm and screen door installations, it is necessary to first slide a “lock tab”, located on the door-check's piston rod, toward and into contact with the face of the door-check cylinder. This requires holding the door in an open position with one hand while sliding the lock-tab with the other, and then reversing the procedure to allow the door to close under action of the cylinder.
This two-fold operation is both clumsy and time consuming. Additionally, since sliding the lock-tab can only be done from inside the door, the prior art is only useful under circumstances where a person is leaving and then immediately returning through the door. Moreover, a dangerous scenario posed by the sliding lock-tab is that because of its operational difficulty, a person might decide not to use its hold-open function and proceed to pass through the door while the door is automatically returning to its closed position, resulting in injury. Further, in those cases where the door checks are installed on the lower portion of a door requiring bending down to operate the lock-tab, the operator is in a more precarious position for injury should the door check malfunction.
It is therefore a primary object of the invention to provide a door hold and release mechanism which is able to hold a door open, hands free, until the person opening the door has completely passed through the door and then subsequently release the hold on the door and allow it to close safely.
Another object of the invention is to provide a door hold and release mechanism which can restrain a door in an open position by the simple action of depressing a button, either by hand or foot, and releasing the restraint by a simple outward pressure on the door.
Still another object of the invention is to provide a door hold and release mechanism which is small and easily mounted onto a door check cylinder, which has a minimum number of moving parts and which is easily manufactured.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide a door hold and release mechanism which is adaptable to most, if not all, reciprocal pneumatic door-checks or closers of the type often used on conventional screen and storm doors.