Weakness

joelincs

I trying to find how many conditions would find it difficult to open a door with a self closer on. Would muscle wasting conditions for instance ?

newborn

Campaigned long and hard over this one. It is NOT the door closer, it is the faulty setting of the door closer. It is NOT a 'heavy door', it is a faulty setting of the door closer. A door closer does Not 'need' to be hard to open.
There is a maximum permitted setting of 20 Newtons (you could test with a spring luggage weigher) But maximum should be only in exceptional situations e.g. the outside door of a cottage exposed to the gales on a cliff top. It is NOT acceptable in any interior door, nor on most exterior doors.

Virtually all doors with self closers are set wrongly. The Building Regulations departments often do not even have a measure to test if they are compliant with the 20 Newtons.  The builders, and those installing doors and closers, are by definition strong people. Naturally, since nobody check them or instructs them, they give a cursory shove to the door, see that it closes, and consider they have done well. They have not.

They should check if anyone they know and care about is small, female,  old, weak, injured, has balance problems, has ever had a damaged back or arm or wrist or shoulder or is pregnant and at risk of losing the baby, has shopping and a buggy and a post-natal weakness, is in pain, is a wheelchair user, is a walking aid user, is carrying shopping or luggage, is a child,  in fact is anything except a healthy strong male. Would that person be able to open that door without help and without harm? 

Bad backs are the most common cause of time lost from work. Bad backs are made worse by opening even one hard to open door, once in a day. Many buildings, and many routine days, include an obstacle course of continuous need to harm a damaged back, or make worse any other existing harm. 

One ridiculous but widespread myth is that "The Fire Brigade insists the doors are hard to open" No, the Fire Brigade do NOT. They want the door to self close, but when they reach a burning building they do NOT hope to find  children and pensioners and injured people and disabled people trapped behind any door, unable to escape without someone to hold open the door for them.

katwater51

Hi @joelincs I experience this. The conditions that I can think of would me any spinal injuries or arm injury obviously, neuropathy, POTS, arthritis,