Nathan Wood

Improvised Lab Doorstop

Al Borland from the Television Show Home Improvement — I think of myself as an Al Borland.

What?

In the entrance to the lab where our tissue culture and microscopy space is, there is no doorstop. Typically in workplace settings, a small rubber doorstop is added either in the wall, floor, or door itself to dampen impacts a door may have on walls. Doorstops also prevent doors from swinging unnecessarily wide. Regardless, failure to have a doorstop may also lead to damage to walls should people carelessly swing it wide open. In our case, the door has received some cosmetic damage, and when people swing the door wide open, it slams into the wall and creates a noise loud enough it disturbs others on the floor. The Department seems unworried regarding having this issue resolved.

Wall mounted doorstop. Image Courtesy McMaster-Carr — Example of wall (left) and floor (right) mounted doorstops. Image courtesy McMaster-Carr

Floor mounted doorstop. Image Courtesy McMaster-Carr — Example of wall (left) and floor (right) mounted doorstops. Image courtesy McMaster-Carr

How I Resolved This Issue

I decided to make an impromptu doorstop. This consists of balled up packaging bubble wrap secured to the wall adjacent to the door using duct tape. In doing so, the doors impact against the wall is cushioned and muffled. This improvised doorstop is added to a part of the wall that corresponds with the upper right hand corner of the door, making it unlikely to bother anyone.

Improvised doorstop 1 — Improvised doorstop

Improvised doorstop 2 — Improvised doorstop

Materials Needed

This is fairly straightforward:

Duct tape (or any tape for that matter, painters tape may not leave any residues)
Some kind of soft packaging material such as bubble wrap