What replacement lock/handle combo do I need to sort out this stupid stable door set up?

[Flimp]

The pervious owners of our house fitted a stable door for access to our garden (for reasons known only to them).

The top half is a normal -Yale? - type lock and handle.

The bottom handle is just AWFUL. To get out you have to spin it clockwise for five rotations and stand on one leg singing god save the queen and hold the top handle down to open it if they're locked together.

Our children can't work it, our guests curse us when they try to go outside without us next to them.

The door is actually really good quality security door and to replace it would be a couple of thousand.

So what can I do about the lock and handle situation? Is there something I can replace the bottom lock thingy with?

I'm clueless so any ideas greatly received, ta.

the handle in the upper half looks like you have a Eurocylinder (not a yale), possibly with multipoint locking.

The lower knob is not really visible. please photograph it again, and also the edge of the door, and the top edge of the lower half.

Does the door have a letterbox or any glass in it?

What do you really have to do to open both halves together?

Ooh great, someone interested in my locks! 🙏

To open both parts together the two parts have to be locked together with the slider lock. The top half unlocked with the key, then you hold the top handle down and turn the bottom handle 1.5 rotations with the other hand. (Such a bloody fire risk).

Sorry the photos are so dark, the only light in that space comes from outside.

The door is solid except for a cat flap.

Picture one shows there's no internal mechanism between the two halves.

The handle on the bottom half of the door is a deadlock - we had one on our front door at the last house. There may be a key operated lock for it on the outside. So providing the bolt securing the two halves together is in place and the deadlock open, i.e. turned away from the door frame, then the lock and handle on the top half should open the whole door.

There is a key operated lock on the outside of the deadlock. If it spins round and doesn't engage the bolt properly then there's something wrong with it that needs attention. Ours took something like one and a half or two turns to engage/unlock.

Yes there's a lock on the other side (as in pic. TBH we never use it because it's so bloody fiddly). It takes 1.5 turns to open the bottom lock and you have to hold it in that position to open it. Is that actually a broken lock then? Not just a weird design?

sorry, can't upload another pic as I've reached the limit apparently

can you really only add 4 photos??

I believe that bottom lock should stay open unless you either use the key from the outside or turn it to lock on the inside. Might be worth having someone take a look at it. A local glazier can probably help. To open the whole door if the two halves are bolted together, you shouldn't have to touch the bottom lock at all if it is unlocked. If it is unlocked and open, are you pushing the top handled down far enough when trying to open the door?

aah, thanks. When the two halves are bolted together, it is the bottom lock that's the problem, we always have to hold turned all the way IYSWIM.

I'll get a locksmith to come and look at it. THANK YOU!

Just a thought - looks like it's a Rockdoor and I'm wondering if there are two ways of turning the handle in the top half - one for just opening the top part and the other for the whole thing. Have you tried pushing the top handle up, for example? Might even be worth a trip to a showroom and getting someone to demo how it should work.

we have to push the top handle before locking, like in lots of uPVC doors.

Just wondered if there was a technique to it, but makes sense that there isn't - the handle should move the bolts round the edge.

So the locksmith has been and sorted it!

There were two 'parts' to the bottom lock: the first part locked when you turned the knob, the second part went in and out on the very last bit of the turn - the bit you had to hold in place to open. The nice man has removed that second part leaving the perfectly good lock in place and meaning we don't need to use two hands to open the door now.

IT'S A MIRACLE! Why didn't we do this six years ago when we moved in?!

Thanks so much for all your advice

Thanks for the update. Six years? What else would be a quick fix?

oh god, don't. DH and I are kicking ourselves for putting up with it. I don't know why, but we just thought it would mean having to get a new door. DOH.