Teresa: When it comes to children and pool safety the statistics are alarming. 350 children under the age of 5 drown in backyard pools each year. Installing a safety fence around your pool is a requirement in many cities and makes your pool safer. At this home, this is the beautiful aluminum fence by DuraFence installed around this pool. But to really protect your children, installing a high quality safety latch on your pool gate, is one more precaution you can take. This is David Calabria with D and D technologies, hi David.
David: Hi Teresa.
Teresa: Now your company makes the Magna-Latch, tell me about that.
David: This D and D technology manufactures safety guide latch from hinges to swimming pool fencing. They manufacture true close hinges and the Magna-Latch. Now the Magna-Latch, is a magnetic safety guide latch, this design have no mechanical resistance to closure. What I mean by that, is that when you open the latch, there’s a magnet sitting in the housing here, which pulls down a hidden or recess latch valve. Magnetically draws in, so it’s not mechanical resistance to closure, which is different to many of the latches that are sitting on the pool gate and various other gates around the country here. Let me show you what I mean.
Teresa: Okay. And this is what you are going to show me, a self closing spring that a lot of home owners used?
David: That’s right Teresa, unlike the true close hinges, which is a self closing and tension adjustable, this spring isn’t adjustable, therefore as you can see, the gate doesn’t self close. Also, it’s exposed so it rusts.
Teresa: And it’s dangerous for little fingers because they can pinch in here.
David: Oh yes, spot on Teresa for trying it, it’s very dangerous.
Teresa: But David a lot of people may not understand the gravity latch, you want to show me that?
David: Let me show you, come through this way.
Teresa: Okay. David, this latch isn’t even closing properly.
David: Well, Teresa this latch is typical of latches all around the world, you know? I mean, number one, it’s rusty, number two; it’s a gravity style or a spring style latch here which obviously it doesn’t allow the latch to close. It has mechanical resistance to closures as you can see because the spring has to pull off or the gravity has to push off to stop. It’s actually level latch to latch. And as you can see, because it looks latch, but it isn’t latch is the most dangerous situation for parents.
Teresa: Right, coz from the other side you would think that it’s latch.
David: Right, exactly.
Teresa: Well, now that we see what’s not working, let’s put on the Magna-Latch and make this pool safer.
David: Sure Teresa.
Teresa: David, I’ve got the structure plate installed on the gate. How are you doing over here?
David: I’m done here Teresa. I’ve put the two mounting brackets on to the Magna-Latch.
Teresa: You know what I really like about this mounting brackets, they’re wrap around, so that means they’re mounted on two sides which gives that added security and better shear strength.
David: That’s right. It also provides an alignment method for the DIY which makes it very easy to install the latch. So, what I’m going to do now is take the Magna-Latch which has an extrusion of a dovetail along the back of the latch which matches up with the dovetail in the brackets. Very simple, all I do is slide it on to the brackets and down.
Teresa: Depending David, on where the homeowner lives, they need to call their local code authority, and get the right height requirement for the release mechanism and then once they have that they can set the Magna-Latch. But, does it have any kind of adjustability?
David: Yes, the Magna-Latch has adjustability here. All we need to do is slide it up and down this dovetails to get the right height and also at the later adjusting the height of the latch so the gate sags. So, what we have at the bottom here, 12 holes in the bottom bracket and four in the Magna-Latch bracket. You slide it down to the right level. Take a little set screw. Just put the screw on the right hole which matches with very small increments here for adjustments.
Teresa: And this is the right height, so little hands can’t reach it. David, now that you have the Magna-Latch body installed, I’m going to install the striker body on the gate and all we need to do is screw this in.
David: Okay, Teresa, once you have that installed, I’m going to show you how to use that screw to adjust the horizontal movements.
Teresa: Okay David, I’ve got the striker body installed to see how I did?
David: Pretty good Teresa, but with just a little bit out of alignment and this next thing is easy with the Magna-Latch. All we need to do now is adjust for alignment by taking the screwdriver and screwing the striker body in and across to adjust the horizontal gap and we take it in and see how that lines up. As we can see, that’s perfect now.
Teresa: David, now that we have the Magna-Latch installed, we need to adjust the tension on the self closing hinges by too close but what exactly are we testing for?
David: We need to ensure that the latch closes from any period position Teresa, including out here and also resting on the latching mechanism. So, what we need to do is ensure that the latch closes from one inch away. So, we let it go at this point, obviously it doesn’t latch so we need to adjust the tension on the true close hinges.
Teresa: Okay and you do that by using a screwdriver pushing this down and turning it, until the gate does latch.
David: That’s perfect Teresa, perfect.
Teresa: Good. Now, notice that there’s also a locking mechanism on this.
David: Yeah, we’ve added a concealed lock to ensure that the homeowner feels safe when they’re away in their home.
Teresa: Many people may think David though, because it is magnet that a kid can get on here and jump on it, pull it and it would detach. But, in this case, we can see it’s not.
David: No, we have many built in safety features into the Magna-Latch to ensure that it will never disengages.
Teresa: Good. Well, now that we have this gate secured, let’s go take a look on another fence and make sure the perimeter fence is secure as well.
David: Okay.
Teresa: We are at our second location and we are installing a different latch. David, this is the loft latch pro. Now, we’re installing this into a vinyl fence application but also this can be installed in wood fence as well.
David: That’s right Teresa. The loft latch pro is the promising security guide latch. It’s a kind of unlatch and latch from either side and lock and unlock from either side which is quite unique. And also, is made of a glass grain reinforce polymer, so it’s rust free it has a six point security lock. It can be key to lock to your front door. This is the main features.
Teresa: David give us the price range for all of the products that we’ve installed this today.
David: Teresa, all these products individually are less than $100.00
Teresa: Wow, that’s great. Now, that is a good investment for the safety and security of your children and your family. How can someone contact you though,if they want more information?
David: You can phone us in 1-800-716-0888 or contact us online on ddtechusa.com.
Teresa: Okay, well David Calabria thank you very much.
David: Thanks Teresa.
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