What you will find in this section
A selection designed for doors that open dozens of times a day: schools, hospitals, hotels, shops, public offices, sports facilities. The vast majority of product pages in this range carry the designation heavy duty, over 200,000 openings. This is the defining thread of the selection, and what sets it apart from a residential door handle.
The assortment breaks down as follows:
- Levers on rose — Altesse, Majestea, Cers, Iraty, Noblesse for the technical hardware side; the OVAL and KVADRAT series for projects with a tighter budget.
- Pull handles and pull bars: straight, offset, T-bar, projecting, rose-mounted or collar-mounted, up to anti-vandal bars in 38 mm diameter.
- Levers on backplate: square, long, narrow 26 mm for slim profiles, or the 2 mm backplate of the Pyla model.
- Half-sets, fixed knob on the outside and lever on the inside, for apartment entrance doors.
- A few knobs only and a cylinder protector.
A clarification to avoid disappointment: this range does not include locks, only the furniture that fits on top. The lock and cylinder are chosen separately, depending on what is already in place.
Lever, pull handle, or half-set: which one for which door?
The choice is less about style than about what the door needs to do.
A lever on rose is fitted to the vast majority of interior doors: offices, classrooms, bedrooms, circulation areas. It operates the latch, so it requires a lock. This is the most common format in the range.
A pull handle or pull bar does one thing only: pull. It is fitted to doors that have no latch to operate — glazed doors, swing doors, main entrances. Offset models and rose-mounted versions are designed for thick doors; anti-vandal versions, with their through-fixing bolts, for locations where hardware is put to the test.
A half-set combines a fixed knob on the outside and a lever on the inside: the door cannot be opened from outside without a key, but can be exited freely. This is the configuration for apartment entrance doors, and several models in the range are available in a reinforced version for this purpose.
A lever on backplate remains useful when the door already has holes to conceal, or when the lock requires a precise centre distance. The range offers narrow backplates for slim profiles, through to solid backplates for apartment entrance doors.
304 or 316 stainless steel: which one to choose?
This is the most frequently asked question in this section, and it has a straightforward answer.
304 stainless steel covers the vast majority of situations: interior, entrance halls, circulation areas, washrooms, sheltered exterior. It is the dominant material in the selection.
316 stainless steel is only justified in three cases, but in those cases it is essential: coastal environments and salt spray, swimming pools and their chlorinated atmosphere, and laboratories and chemical environments. The difference comes down to molybdenum, present at a few percent in 316 and absent from 304: it is what slows corrosion in the presence of chlorides. The range includes several dedicated models, such as the Bordeaux Coudée pull handle in 316. If your building is in one of these environments, 316 stainless steel hardware will save you from having to replace everything in a few years' time.
Which finish stands the test of time?
On a high-traffic door, the finish takes more punishment than the mechanism. Three families coexist here.
- Matt brushed stainless steel, unvarnished: the raw material. It shows little wear, can be cleaned without care, and ages without surprises. It is the default choice in a professional environment.
- PVD (physical vapour deposition): a layer deposited under vacuum, significantly harder than lacquer. This is what makes it possible to have satin gold, black, bronze or copper on a heavily used door. Several PVD models in the range carry a ten-year manufacturer's warranty. Our full collection of PVD-treated handles is brought together in a dedicated section.
- Lacquered finishes and electrophoresis, less common here, for shades that PVD does not cover.
In practice: brushed stainless steel for a school or hospital, PVD whenever the architecture calls for colour, lacquered as a last resort.
Fixings: what changes in public buildings
This is the detail that gets discovered too late. In a home, a handle is screwed into the door. In a building open to the public, it must withstand whatever is done to it.
The product pages in this range indicate, depending on the model: through-fixing screws rather than wood screws, self-breaking tamper-proof nuts that shear off when tightened and cannot be unscrewed, non-removable outer backplate, solid anti-wrench backplate, and concealed fixings to leave nothing to grip. These details appear on the product page for each relevant item: check them before ordering, as they do not apply to the entire range.
Backplate and rose thicknesses range from 3 mm to 11 mm, the most common value being 10 mm. The available shapes are round rose, square rose, and long backplate.
Fire doors and accessibility
Two topics come up consistently in public building projects, and they deserve to be addressed precisely.
A fire door is a complete assembly — leaf, frame, door closer, hardware — assessed as a whole. Furniture cannot simply be fitted to it indiscriminately. Certain references in this range carry an explicit note on this in their product page; we have grouped them in the fire door handles section. For a project subject to this requirement, refer to the door manufacturer's documentation and write to us: we will verify compatibility with you rather than leaving you to guess.
On the accessibility side, what matters is the grip: a lever is grasped with the full hand and operated without pinching or twisting the wrist, unlike a round knob. Suitable models are brought together in our DDA door handles.
The ranges in this section
Two families share the selection.
The Altesse, Majestea, Cers, Iraty, Noblesse, Pyla, Thor and Bordeaux series make up the technical offering: 304 or 316 stainless steel, PVD finishes, reinforced versions for apartment entrance doors, and extra-long pull handles. Several of these models show a durability classification on their product page — Grade 3 or Grade 4 depending on the reference — as well as extended warranties.
The OVAL and KVADRAT series cover simpler requirements: round or square shapes, classic finishes, controlled pricing. They are suited to moderate-traffic premises or projects where the number of doors takes precedence over the level of specification.
For an office fit-out, the office hardware range offers a focused selection. And if your project combines common areas and residential units, our full range can be found in interior door handles.
Any doubt about a model, an unusual door thickness, or a large quantity to quote? Write to us: we respond with the manufacturer's technical documents to hand.