This is a longer review; actually, it’s the review I wish would have been here when we were shopping! I’ll start with our summary, then background (why we were looking for door protectors), and then detailed review that explains the summary ratings. I also plan to update in a few months. ******************************** I'M UPDATING REVIEW NOW that it has been 3+ months. I'll add a few notes throughout the review with a summary here: - The covers that installed well have been adhering just great (details below) - Carlsbad Safety updated their instructions to mention the 1/4" offset/gap - With some doors we installed 2x 17" sections, and others we installed 3x 17" sections. Now that time has gone by and we're watching our little ones around the doors (1.5, 2.5, and 4 years old) we're feeling like 3x sections are overkill. Since each cover is 4x 17" sections, and each pack includes 2 covers, if you only install 2x sections per door that would mean each pack can be used to cover 4x doors rather than two. This increases the value. - I'm increasing my rating from 4 stars to 5 stars. Primarily because the adhesive is holding well at 3+ months and because we were able to protect 4x doors per set (bullet immediately above) the value for this is better than if the full height is used on a single door in which case you only protect 2 doors per set. ******************************** ANOTHER UPDATE as it has now been a year since I installed the shields. All of the shields are adhering properly and none have come off. The one that we initially had problems with (due to having to uninstall and reinstall) - has been staying put. We love the peace of mind that comes from having these on our doors. ******************************** If I missed something in the review, feel free to ask a question and I can update/add to the review. THE SUMMARY REVIEW: Functionality: 5 stars! (WE LOVE THE PEACE OF MIND WITH THESE IN PLACE) Instructions: 2.5 stars (UPDATED to 3.5 stars due to improved instructions mentioning the 1/4" installation gap) Value: 3.5 stars (UPDATED to 4.5 stars since we're only using 2x sections per door which means each cover can protect 2 doors and each 2-pack can cover 4 doors) Adhesion: 5 stars Reapply Adhesion: 2.5 stars (UPDATED to 3.5 stars due to the reapplied protector still staying attached). Our background: We have heavy (solid core) wooden doors in our house. On top of that the door to the garage expands/contracts at certain times of the year and can be difficult to close – requiring more effort/force. I can still remember the moment my 2-year-old little girl put her finger into the hinge side of that door as I was closing it. She didn’t pull her finger back (good thing or we would have been dealing with a full amputation) or scream but made a little exclamation and looked up at me with huge eyes full of pain. We instantly got her pinkie finger out of the door -- it was dripping blood on the floor -- and I knew we had a major problem. We quickly wrapped her finger in a clean cloth and applied pressure. A minute or two later I needed to check and see what we were dealing with. As I gently removed the cloth the entire end of her finger shifted: I felt absolutely sick to my stomach. What followed was a $3,000 (crazy but true; and that, my friends, is the discounted/negotiated price) visit to the emergency room for stitches. The official diagnosis was “attempted restoration of partial amputation.” Then daily bandage changes (not fun). The ER said to come back at the 6-day mark for stitch removal – which turned out to be too early and was a very painful/traumatic visit (not sure if it was harder for my little girl or me). Then a consultation with a children’s plastic surgeon because the stitches were removed too early and the finger hadn’t fully healed (he said for little children he would have had stitches in for 10 days, assuming daily bandage changes and no signs of infection). We are so very grateful to God that, at about 3 weeks, her finger/fingertip had fully healed. Our home’s doors (solid oak): My wife and I had been talking about our doors ever since we began having children. With how heavy the doors are we figured we were going to have safety problems. We worked very hard with our children to keep fingers away from doors and to have them never open/close doors- hard (if not impossible) with a 3 year old, 2 year old, and baby. While we figured we would eventually have a door emergency, we were always focused on the door-handle side. We sure didn’t expect it to be ME the one closing a door, and that the emergency would be on the HINGE side. Researching changing to hollow-core doors. Following that injury we began researching doors. We were going to remove our children’s closet doors (replace those with shower curtains) and also replace all of our interior solid core doors with hollow-core doors. Solid-core doors tend to weigh about 70 pounds. Hollow-core doors weigh about 24 pounds each. To help with the hinge side I was going to route the hinge side edges so the wood was rounded and didn’t have a sharp edge. The doors were going to cost about $40 each and probably take an hour or two to install. Our doors are beautiful 6-panel solid oak doors, and the replacements were either going to be plain white 6-panel, or we could get ugly unfinished wood “flats”. We eventually found a home improvement store that had 6-panel hollow-core doors in unfinished oak for $80 each – however, they would have taken even longer to install since the door handle wasn’t pre-drilled, but they would have more closely matched our trim (or we could have spent many hours staining/lacquering them to match). So, we were looking at spending between $1,000 and $2,000, plus MANY hours of time, to put doors in our house that wouldn’t have matched our trim, and if/when we sell the house we would have had to put the solid-core doors back up. The crazy thing is that this big door project wouldn’t have protected my little girl’s finger as the door between the house and garage is required by code to be a solid-core door. I also talked with a door salesman at one of the large home improvement stores who said he was happy to sell us doors but he didn’t think we would be happy with the hollow-core doors. While safer, he said he feels the force necessary to close a hollow-core door ends up being somewhat similar to solid-core, and that “children are children” and injuries can and do occur with hollow-core as well. Door Covers: Which leads us to this product. We had been running Google searches and the only door covers we were finding seemed to cost closer to $100 (per side). Plus, that still left the handle side unprotected. I’m not sure why we didn’t find these sooner, but when we did, we were intrigued. We didn’t care what they looked like (remember: we were looking at switching from beautiful oak solid-core doors to plain white hollow core 6-panel doors): our biggest question was simply how long the adhesive would last (and if it didn’t last I was thinking I could tack these to the door). Spending about $40 per door for something that might last a year at best was not the solution we were looking for. However, the idea of spending no more than $40 per door, a few minutes for installation, and being “done” with it was something we wanted. We bought several to see how they worked and if they would last for years. DETAILED REVIEW: These door protectors are basically white foamboard that has been scored so that they will fold up into the door when closed. They are folded into four sections of 17 inches each, with a total height of about 68-70 inches. Little 1-inch strips of specialty double-stick adhesive has been applied (several per foot) to adhere to the door or door frame. Most of the 17-inch panels have 4 adhesives (1 at top and 1 at bottom on each side) although a few of our panels only came with two adhesives (1 in the middle on each side) – which is a problem for install
