Internal door handles

[Stones]

Just in the process of choosing door handles and we have a choice of finishes / mix of finishes:

 

Satin Nickel and Polished Chrome

Polished Chrome and Satin Chrome

Satin Stainless Steel

 

Any of those combinations / finishes to be avoided?

[AliG]

All interior door handles should have quite a long lifespan so I would probably tell you just to buy what you prefer the look of. Some handles will look worse than others after 10 years of use, but I am not sure the difference is that large that I wouldn't get the ones I most like the look of.

 

Generally stainless steel handles will be solid alloy whereas chrome and nickel handles will be made from brass which is then plated and a lacquer is applied.

 

Heavily used plated door handles especially on a bathroom door can see the lacquer come off eventually and start to look untidy. In my current 12 year old house which has polished brass handles I have had this the downstairs WC handle after 7 or 8 years and most of the outside door brass handles. Also some of the window handles I can literally peel the lacquer from . The other handles you look fine, although there is a kind of patination on them. I would expect this to happen on any plated handle eventually.

 

Polished handles will be harder to keep clean.

 

Stainless steel is harder wearing although it can show little spots of corrosion as you might see on cutlery, but again probably only if it consistently gets wet. Polished stainless steel would be better for this.

 

 

[Barney12]

Personally I think all of them are fine. The bigger issue is quality. Cheap fittings will either mechanically fail or as @AliG has said the lacquer or plate will fail which is a right PITA when you want all your fittings to match. 

 

My OCD side of the brain was contemplating this point only the other day. Order a couple of extra's for the "spares" cupboard so if one fails you can easily replace it? Same is true of downlights, fittings etc. But as I said it was my OCD talking  

Edited September 26, 2016 by Barney12

[Temp]

Our carpenter insisted I buy handles that had a good return spring in them so they don't rely on the spring in the latch mechanism to raise the handle. I thought all handles had a spring but apparently not.

[Temp]

"Nickel" covers a range of finishes from real nickel plate to a "nickel effect". We used nickel plated taps and fittings in a WC after seeing some at a show. Not sure if I would do so again. They look fantastic and have a warmer/richer look to them than chrome but they can/do tarnish and there are other issues... It's quite hard getting everything in Nickel and a mixture looks odd. For example you start noticing the loo seat hinges are chrome. There aren't many sources for things like a real nickel plated WC flush pipe and they are expensive by comparison to chrome.

 

 

[Stones]

 

10 hours ago, Barney12 said:

Personally I think all of them are fine. The bigger issue is quality. Cheap fittings will either mechanically fail or as @AliG has said the lacquer or plate will fail which is a right PITA when you want all your fittings to match. 

 

My OCD side of the brain was contemplating this point only the other day. Order a couple of extra's for the "spares" cupboard so if one fails you can easily replace it? Same is true of downlights, fittings etc. But as I said it was my OCD talking  

 

Certainly one of things I'm thinking about, order two or three spare sets of handles to cover the most used rooms.  The problem is how to you measure quality, is price a reasonable indicator.  I'm not convinced it is, but the flip side of the coin is that if you only spend lets say £10 per set of door handles, if you decide to change everything a few years down the line, it's not going to be prohibitive.

 

7 hours ago, Temp said:

"Nickel" covers a range of finishes from real nickel plate to a "nickel effect". We used nickel plated taps and fittings in a WC after seeing some at a show. Not sure if I would do so again. They look fantastic and have a warmer/richer look to them than chrome but they can/do tarnish and there are other issues... It's quite hard getting everything in Nickel and a mixture looks odd. For example you start noticing the loo seat hinges are chrome. There aren't many sources for things like a real nickel plated WC flush pipe and they are expensive by comparison to chrome.

 

 

 

Good point about matching in to bathroom fittings.  The only match I had been considering was the window handles, which appear to be satin stainless.  Most of our bathroom stuff is polished chrome, so whatever we do, there will be a clash somewhere (we want to use the same door handle throughout).