Evenflo Top of Stair Gate
by Evenflo
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List Price: Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Evenflo Top of Stair Gate
Customer Review: Extremely solid, used at the local toddler gym, we have three of them!
Summary: 5 Stars
I installed three of these in our home. Somehow, they are both the least expensive gate on the market as well as the most simple, robust, and clean-looking. Our "big boy" is only 16 months old, but is extremely strong and shakes / tries to climb these on a daily basis. I'm not the least bit worried about them.
Notes for others out there:
You will need to install both sides into studs - don't be afraid, this is easier done than I thought. You also have to install the mounting hardware into vertically-aligned wall. I.e., if you have thick (over 2 inch) baseboard moulding, you will need to compensate. I did this easily + beautifully, by getting two scraps of identical thickness decorative moulding at the local DIY / hardware store, and mounting the upper brackets through the moulding scraps to the wall & stud. These are rock solid.
A nice thing about these gates is that they both swing as well as slide together when not in use. I.e., to unlock, you actually slide one half of the gate towards the other (hinge) half. This means that when not in use (which is a surprising amount of the time during naps or at night), the gate can be made roughly half of the full width *and* swung out of the way. This is really handy, as two of the areas where we use these gates there isn't much room on either side.
The first install took about 45 min, with me going very slowly etc. The second install took about 15 min, and was a piece of cake without even looking at the directions.
If you want to measure baseboard mouldings, make sure to look at the instructions first, as the hinge & bracket pieces are not all the same size, and it's not easily obvious without the instructions which one goes well.
Customer Review: Very Good Value!
Summary: 4 Stars
After spending considerable time researching stairway gates, I stumbled onto this gate. At-first glance it appeared somewhat inadequate compared to other gates we were considering. However, after having conducted a lot of research into baby gates and finding that a major factor in gate safety is the quality of the hardware, we found that the hardware included with this gate more than made up for its simple wood construction. Even though this gate is fairly basic, the mounting hardware is a lot more robust than gates costing a hundred dollars more. This was an important feature for us since we had once bought a beautiful stained wood gate (paid around $150.00) which was very sturdy and very well constructed -but came with hardware that was terribly cheap. This forced us to ultimately remove the gate due to safety concerns (the hardware kept pulling free from the wall and finally bent beyond repair under normal pass-through conditions). The obvious emphasis of that product was cosmetics. Conversely, the EVENFLO Top of Stair gate comes unfinished and is of a simpler construction than one would intuitively expect. However, its design emphasis was clearly on providing an adequate (affordable) wood gate with very good mounting and latching hardware. We feel strongly that no matter how well a gate may be built; if its mounting hardware is cheap it won't perform as needed to ensure the safety of your little loved ones. We've now had two of these gates installed at the top and bottom of our stairs for the last two months and remain very happy with their consistent performance when subjected to the constant testing of a 14 month old.Customer Review: CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS
Summary: 1 Stars
I hate this gate and quality is typical of evenflo. If I had noticed it was evenflo, I wouuld not have wasted my time. It was a pain to install. Total PAIN. Then, when it's unlocked, it slides for adjustment. The thing is, there is no way to stop it so baby sticks his arm through slates as you open and then you have a broken or badly bruised arm. We put a screw into the wood so it would slide just a little to help prevent that. IF we had known about the second risk, we would have just taken it down then. THe next morning, it was kid tested. Yeah, all the kid has to do is push the bottom and it comes out of the bracket causing the gate bend foreward. So far, I have seen my kids push it more than a foot out of position. MAJOR STRANGLATION HAZARD. Not to mention broken bones. The wood is so flimsy it just twist every which way.
As far as function goes, when you go to unlock it, sometimes it will not unhook out of the slot. I have had to pratically hang on it to get it open. Also, the gate now leans. When opened, it leans to where a ball would roll for the from to the end of the gate. Not sure how that came about. We have had this gate for a couple of months. My son has been able to push it out since he started crawling. My 2 yrold can almost squeeze out by pushing on it which has lead to her getting stuck when I made a bathroom break. Not a good gate at all. Evenflo just needs to stop. Every product I have had has been crap. I am afraid to buy their carseats. If they can't make a good simple baby gate, I wouldn't trust my child's life to their carseats. We plan to replace within the next couple of paychecks.
Customer Review: Best baby gate ever!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
Believe me! It's the best baby gate I found so far. And we had them all. This is my ninth gate (no kidding), I tried. I looked for a solid, easy to open, wide opening top of stair gate to keep my 7 months old from falling down our stairs.
One of our other gates (The First Years All Clear Swing Gate) was good for a while and smooth to open, but broke when our 28 lbs toddler leaned against it (two small plastic pieces with screws inside). I could not fix it - even using all my Mc Giver tools and knowledge. Most of the others could not be opened with one hand and were too narrow to walk thru with a toddler, a baby and some shopping bags.
I did not pay much attention to this Evenflo gate as it is cheap and did not seem sturdy enough for my very active 2 year old, but I was wrong. :-)
Our preschool has two of them with really heavy traffic (easily opened and closed 200+ times a day) and so I thought I will give it a try.
Please pay some attention to the manual before assembly. If you measure and do it right, it won't get stuck on the lower notch as it does if it's not done correctly. Also it won't work without studs in your wall and does not come with solutions for floor boards. I just saw off the lower bar about 1/2 an inch to level it out. That did the trick.
Great, sturdy gate. Great price. Don't spend more time researching for others. This is it! I am so happy I found it after just 24 months.
;-)
I am using it for a month now and have no complains. It's truely much more worth than $ 35.
Customer Review: Need Two Hands!!
Summary: 2 Stars
We have a very tall beautiful wood staircase, with two separate entrances at the bottom. It was imperative for us to find two gates for the bottom entrances that could be easily opened with one hand, and still be safe and secure. This one failed the test!
We purchased and installed two of these gates into our beautiful oak wood bannister. They installed seemingly easily, until we tried to used them. We could not get the top and bottom of the gates to align properly. I after an hour of trying to open the latch, could not get it to budge. My husband could get it open, but then you couldn't get the bottom part of the gate to align. In order to go through the gate, I needed both hands. Well, no way in H*LL that was going to work if your trying to carry a sleeping infant off to bed! We tried to reinstall them a 2nd time, and the screws wouldn't even come out of the banister. The heads broke off and the screws are still in our lovely bannister for life! No way to get them out.
If you do purchase these gates to match your woodwork... please be very cautious when installing them into your wood banister. If you make a mistake... it's forever! No way to fix your wood. Trust me... wood putty won't be enough. Also, the screws provided are cheap screws (all baby gates come with cheap screws we found). They assume you're installing into drywall. If you install into wood... GO BUY SOME GOOD CARPENTRY SCREWS FIRST! The ones provided will strip, bend, and break.