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Handyman Tip For Broken Self Closing Spring

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Houses with pools are required to have a self-closing and latching gate. This is accomplished by installing a self-closing gate spring on the gate, so when someone passes through the gate, the spring forces the gate to close and latch. This is an easy job for a handyman and it may not even need to be replaced.

If you don't have a self-closing mechanism on the gate, you certainly have to add one. However, if you have an existing one that has stopped working, you might be able to bring it back to life. At the end of the gate spring you will see a series of holes. These holes are attached to a mechanism that torques the spring to a tension and causes it to self-close. There is a pin, or should be a pin, that holds the mechanism and it's tension in place to keep the spring tensioned and functioning. It is common to see this pin shear off which makes the spring lose its tension, causing the gate to no longer be self-closing.

There is a lot of pressure on this pin which is why it shears off. You can use a large nail as a temporary solution, but the softness of the nail will also cause it to eventually fail. The trick is to find an alternative that fits the hole but is hard enough to stand up to the tension. You can try a quality drill bit. Choose the largest diameter that will fit into the hole. Use a nail to start tensioning the spring. Stick the nail in the hole and move it to tension. Hold the tension in place by inserting the drill bit into the hole. Repeat this until you have enough tension that the gate closes and latches when the gate is held at a 45-degree angle to the wall. There is a fine line here too...don't tension it so tightly that the wall shakes.