How To Determine If Door Is Left Handed (LH) or Right Handed (RH)

Determining LH or RH Door

An often asked question is how to determine whether a door is a Left Hand (LH) or Right Hand (RH) door. This simple guide serves to answer that question to give you the confidence needed to order your door hardware.

When buying entrance door levers and dummy levers, you need to know if you want left-handed levers or right-handed levers. To determine the dexterity of your door, stand on the outside of your door (keyed side), and look at the side that the door is hinged on. If the door is hinged on the left, it is a left-handed door. If the door is hinged on the right, it is a right-handed door.

For Outward Swinging Doors

Commercial applications or doors placed in tight quarters often require a door to open outward toward the exterior of the building vs inward towards the interior of the building. These are called reverse swing doors. In this situation you would still order based on standing outside of the door and determining whether hinged on the left or hinged on the right.

A Note On Dummy Levers

For dummy levers, stand on the mounting side of the door. If the door is hinged on the left it is a LH if it is hinged on the right it is a RH. In most situations, dummy levers are used on double doors in which case you would order one LH and one RH.

A Note On Front Entry Handlesets

Due to the lever being on the interior of the door, many customers get confused on how to order for LH or RH Front Entry Handlesets. As previously mentioned, always order based on the swing of the door from the exterior. So if the door swings in to the right, order a RH Entry set. What will come for the interior lever will match for its intended use. The interior lever you would receive with a RH Front Entry would be a LH interior to account for the difference on the opposite side of the door. Always choose LH or RH based on the exterior.

Final Thoughts

Fortunately, many of our products are fully reversible and do not require you to specify LH or RH. As a good rule of thumb, if the listing asks you to specify lh or rh then the item is likely not reversible. Please specify dexterity in these instances.