The door knob saga

 Living in a heritage building is a joy - large rooms with high ceilings, versatile spaces, beautiful detailing and generally an atmosphere of crafted elegance. But sometimes there is a down-side. Every time anyone opens or closes my front door, the knob comes off in their hand! The doorknob is the original steel one with a restrained art deco design. The front door's is a slightly larger version of the interior doors, using the same steel finish and fluting to the door-plate and knob. 

My front doorknob

I have tried to repair this myself, using Pratley's steel adhesive, but that only lasted a couple of turns of the knob before it fell off again. Several locksmiths and building contractors have tried to fix it, but with no joy. I really don't want to replace it, as it is so much a feature of the building, matching in with the other doorknobs in my own apartment and the front doors of many of my neighbours. It also matches in with the original bell-push, many of which have been retained, although I doubt that any of them still work.

This sparked my curiosity as to how many other neighbours had a similar door handle problem and had to replace theirs, so I did a survey of the whole building. About 40% of the front doors have had theirs replaced at some point in the building's history, with quite a variety of styles, materials and finishes.

The replaced knobs and handles

These range from very basic - type B has been used by three of the owners - a simple chrome-plated handle more often used for interior doors, so quite cheap looking. Type E and L go to the opposite extreme, with very elaborate cover-plates that now look very dated. Clearly there was an attempt to "blend" with the original Art Deco detailing, but the result is less than successful.

The very simple designs are mostly quite unobtrusive, although it is a pity that there is such variety, as it has a very piecemeal effect - the main reason that I have resisted replacing my own doorknob. When I was recording the different knobs, I ran into one of my neighbours whose knob and cover plate were missing - she told me that she had sent it off to replace the lockset, but was having difficulties in that modern locks were too small, so she was having one custom made.

There were two really interesting doors: the one was to the apartment that was originally for the building's caretaker. This is a slightly different one that almost certainly dates from the original construction, but is of bakelite instead of the more expensive steel ones of the other apartments. My neighbour who occupies this apartment showed me the ironmongery to the internal doors, which we believe is also bakelite, also of Art Deco design.

The other interesting door handle is a replacement, but here the owners have managed to source a contemporary Art Deco handle that is very similar to the original ones. It also matches the steel finish, so a very successful find.

An Art Deco replacement

This brings me to some general pointers when living in or working with a historical building, especially one with heritage status. The first choice is to repair or refurbish the element that is broken. Often this requires the work of a specialist, so will tend to be quite difficult to source and can be quite costly. If this is not possible, the next option is to find a replacement contemporary with the building, but here it is important to "read" the detailing of the building as a whole. I have had very interesting discussions with owners and building managers with modernist buildings where they have wanted to replace fittings with ornate ones that "look old", despite the huge efforts of the original designers to achieve a streamlined and minimalist aesthetic. 

If you cannot repair or find a suitable replica or replacement, then the best advice I can give is to go for the simplest choice, but try to blend in with the overall shape and scale of the original, such as the examples C and G in my drawing, with a simple rectangular cover plate in a steel similar to the original. For my own door, I keep hoping that some brilliant chemical engineer will invent an adhesive that allows me to repair it, but in the meantime I will suffer along with my guests whenever the knob falls off!