Add large handles to sliding door

Question

Hello. First of all, thanks very much for offering this service. It is appreciated.

My wife has arthritis in her hands and has trouble using the finger pulls on our slider. I would like to either replace the existing setup with a handle/lock combination that would include large, easy to grab handles on both sides of the door or keep the existing setup and simply add handles.

The opening in the inside and outside of the door when the lockset is removed is 3/4"w x 7 1/8"H. The opening in the door edge is 7/8"w x 1 1/8"H. The screws in the existing lockset are 6 5/8" on center. Pls let me know if I missed an important detail.

I would appreciate your recommendation for appropriate hardware.

Best regards,

Ed

Tom · Accepted Answer

Hey, Ed. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but these locksets are only designed to use interior pull handles. For some reason they are not meant to use exterior handles in any way, shape, or form. It's a serious flaw in the design of this style.

For example, we sell the 88-001 pull. I'm very confident that this will work on your door but there's no way to install it on the exterior short of drilling holes in the actual door frame itself and mounting it above or below the lockset.

There is also no hope of substituting for a different handle set. When you remove the lockset you have now, it leaves a huge rectangular hole in the door, preventing pretty much any other style from being installed. You really are stuck with this.

The only other solution you can consider, aside from manually mounting a pull to the door frame, is to remove the rollers for cleaning and lubrication. That might make the door easier to open and close. Otherwise you may want to consider a new door entirely.