North States Superyard 3 in 1 Metal Gate
by North States Industries
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List Price: Our Price: $112.53 You Save: $27.46 (20%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $94.99 (click here) Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of North States Superyard 3 in 1 Metal Gate
Customer Review: Solid product with one stupid design flaw
Summary: 4 Stars
First, I want to say I have not yet completely installed this product but I like it already. The gates themselves are solid. They have nice bumper pads on the bottom so as to not scratch the wood floors in my home. The gate itself is extremely safe but a little difficult to open. If you have looked at other gates you will often find ones of parents complaining that their toddler figured out how to open it on their own. That would be extremely difficult here as it has a locking button that must be pressed before the gate is then lifted to be opened. The gate only swings one direction which is too bad and could've been fixed with a different style hinge. That sections themselves can be pressure locked into place, making this a very stable play-yard/large gate for your home. Sections can be easily lifted out and removed or added back in. This thing is very versitile in terms of configuration. BUT it has one really stupid design flaw that can be fixed by the consumer but should've just been done by the manufacturer in the first place.
THE FLAW:
The gate sections interlock at the hinge and then are held into place by screwing in a support bar. At each hinge, there is one side that goes up and ones side that goes down (male and female for simplicity's sake). Thus you need one male and one female hinge to fit together for the sections to interlock. The other aspect to this is that if you are hooking the play-yard up to a wall or you are using this as a large gate, the top bracket to hook this to the wall is also male or female (you get one of each in the box). The final piece to this is that rather than making each gate section have one female and one male hinge piece on each side, the company decided to make each gate section have two male or two female hinge pieces. Because they did this, it limits the configuration that you can easily do out of the box. For me, I want to use this as a gate with only 5 sections instead of six which made it so the exposed ends to fit in the wall bracket were both female... but I get one female and one male wall bracket... Likewise, if you were to buy the two section expansion for this product but only want to use one section, you would run into the same problem. Note that this will only effect those that intend to use an odd number of gate sections!!!
On a related note, the reason for this could be that the hinge piece are not "ambidextrous." Meaning that they can fully fold in on each other one way but not the other (you are limited to a little larger than 90 degree angel I believe). So, the above issue might be there so that the gate can fold up all neat and nice to be stored. If that is the case, I supposed it makes sense...
THE FIX:
The hinge pieces are held in place by a single screw on the bottom of the gate section. You can simply unscrew these and swap them out with the gate piece you don't intend to use. This took me only a few minutes but it took me a while to figure it out at first. If the above reason I am theorizing is correct, the manufacturer could've simply thrown two of each top bracket in to save the consumer a lot of trouble. This would not help those making this into an enclosed playyard using an odd number of gate sections but I have a feeling that issue is a lot less prevelent and a lot easier to simply cope with.
In the end, this is a solid product and much cheaper than some of its competitors (like the Kidco Configure Gate which is about twice as much for the same number of gate sections). Highly recommended.
Customer Review: One of the best I've seen.
Summary: 5 Stars
We currently own 4 different gate products, purchased since our son started crawling. This is by far the best. We bought it so that we could split it out into two barriers of 3 panels each. Great quality, very sturdy. Since it only comes with one panel with a gate, we put that at the kitchen since the dog needs to be able to get in there as well. We are putting the other one to block off another space that we don't need to get in and out of often, so we can just climb over. So far we only have it installed at the kitchen.
Best things about this product: The gate can automatically shut behind you if you don't open it all the way, but it can also stay open if you open it as far as it will go (which isn't completely open, which might annoy some but doesn't bother us). So you have the option of leaving it open (like, for the dog, at night) or having it automatically shut (like, when getting dinner ready while your child plays in the next room).
Installation was very easy. Instructions weren't all that clear, but the setup is intuitive enough that once you figure out how the side-most bars attach and detach from the panel, you don't really need any more info. I'm sure it's even easier if you're using the full yard, and not attaching to the wall. But even wall installation was easy. No need to worry about molding along the bottom of the wall either - the wall attachments are at the top and middle of the panels, not the bottom.
Potential downsides: If you plan to split it out like we do, you'll need to order more wall-mounting hardware from the manufacturer, since it only comes with enough for one section. Actually, if you plan to use an odd number of gates, you'll need more hardware anyway, since the wall mounts only come with one 'male' and one 'female' piece, and with an odd number of gates you'll need two of the same kind. It's only ~$6 and it arrived very quickly. They actually didn't charge me since they couldn't match my color gate, only black was in stock at the time. I didn't care, it's not really noticeable.
Also, as with all wall mounts, if you don't have a stud behind the wall where you plan to install, you'll need to use anchors with the screws, which are never as reliable as drilling into the stud for a product like this which might incur the full wrath and strength of your toddler/dog! However, we've had ours up for a couple of weeks with anchors on one side, and it seems to be doing fine despite much shaking and pushing.
Customer Review: Great gate for puppies!
Summary: 4 Stars
I ordered two of these gates to enclose an area for a litter of puppies that I have currently, and later to use to divide the house to contain dogs to certain areas if I have guests or want to work in a room undisturbed by the dogs for a little while. I like the flexibility to use them as a single "play pen" set up, and also to use them in a straight line as a walk-through gate.
I was expecting white, and was willing to accept white because the price was better than I could find elsewhere. I was actually thrilled when they arrived and they are really an off-white/light beige. It works much better for me, so I'm very happy with them, but be aware that the color might not be what you expect from the pictures!
The gates are sturdy, heavy duty, and they articulate in both directions at every joint independently, so you can actually zig=zag them. As a result, they are very stable even when set up in a sort of straight line without being bolted to the wall. They would not, in that case, contain a determined child or dog, but for my Bassets, they work perfectly even without being connected to the wall.
For people buying to contain dogs - a couple of nice features. The uprights are round and tubular - they are easy to keep clean, and much sturdier than an ex-pen. Also, since there are no cross-pieces, dogs are protected from getting their paws stuck as they sometimes do in xpens, and there's nothing for the dog to get purchase on to climb over the barrier.
The "gate" portion that opens is pretty narrow (about 17 inches wide). I'm a medium sized person, and I sort of turn a bit to fit through comfortably. A large person might have an issue with getting through the gate. The other thing to note is that the mechanism for unlatching the gate is a push button on top, and then a slight lift and swing. The push button is VERY stiff. It is starting to be easier to handle now, after several weeks of use - but in the beginning, I really had to use two hands to open the gate - one to push on the button, one to swing open. This could be an issue for mothers of small children who might be carrying things going through the gate. It required some juggling from me when I was carrying puppy supplies.
All in all, I really like the gate, and I would probably buy one again if I were in the market. I'm hoping, of course, not to be in the market for a while, since I hope these will hold up nicely for the long run.
Customer Review: Great playpen for dogs and puppies!
Summary: 5 Stars
I saw this Superyard and thought it would be perfect for my toy poodles. I ordered one, and was very pleased with the quality and ease of setup. It is a nice looking gate to have in your home, not cheap or flimsy looking like the traditional wire dog playpens. The rubber feet were a real bonus, I didn't have to worry about scratches on my hardwood floors or put felt pads on the bottom. I thought the single Superyard was a bit small, even for my little dogs who range from just under 4 pounds to 7.5 pounds. So I simply ordered a second one, as I couldn't believe how reasonable the price was for this quality playpen, plus the free shipping! I have spent well over two hundred on wood gates that aren't nearly as sturdy as this one. It was a snap to add the second one to the first, and now my dogs have a huge play area where they can really romp around around in, and I have peace of mind knowing that they are safe and not getting into trouble while my husband and I are at work. Their litterbox (Purina Second Nature Dog Litter Pan - great item!) is in one corner and there is still plenty of room. One tip for those of you with tiny dogs - my smallest dogs and their puppies were able to squeeze between the bars, and this will work with any vertical bar type fence or gate: I ordered shelf liners made for industrial wire shelving (to prevent items from falling through wire shelves) from Global Industrial - Shelf Liner 72x24 Item #: WG188744CL All you have to do is weave the shelf liners through the bars, this size fits the Superyard perfectly and is sturdy enough that the dogs can't pull it down. When you get to the ends of each shelf liner (I overlapped them about an inch or two), make sure they stick out on the outside of the playpen instead of the inside, this way the dogs have nothing to pull or chew on. Five of these were more than enough for two connected Superyards, I had to cut the last one. The shelf liners can easily be cut with sharp scissors or shears. The liners come shorter than 72" but you should definitely get the 24" width because that will be the height when it's in the gate. And both the Superyard and shelf liners are very easy to wipe down when necessary. Overall, a fantastic product!Customer Review: Almost a disaster!
Summary: 4 Stars
We have a large opening in between our kitchen and living room measuring 8 1/2 feet. After extensive research and web browsing we finally settled on this gate. It was one of the few that was large enough for the opening and judging by reviews was the sturdiest we would find.
It arrived today and my adventure began with my cordless drill going dead on the first screw. Not a problem caused by the gate but aggravating enough to mention here. As I struggled screwing them in by hand and waiting for the drill to charge I decided to take the gate itself out of its packaging and see what I was in for. As soon as I pulled the first piece of plastic away I noticed that one of the plastic pieces that joins the "gate" with the rest of the barrier was broken off and laying there in about 4 pieces.
I had to eliminate several minutes of ranting and curse words there. I typed them all out but then deleted them when my wife said Amazon probably frowns on that kind of thing. But I digress....
After I calmed down I started inspecting the whole assembly to see if I could salvage what I had and avoid the whole return process and waiting for another gate to arrive. It took some thought but I finally figured it out. Fortunately for me I only needed a gate to span 8 1/2 feet and not the full 12 feet the gate can expand, which meant I had an extra 2 foot section that I did not need. So I then proceeded to rob Peter to pay Paul so to speak and was able to assemble the gate with the 4 remaining sections and 1 gate.
Once I figured out what I had to do to make it work, assembling it was fairly straight forward and easy. Outside of this one problem I am happy with the product so far. It seems to be fairly sturdy and our 10 month old linebacker put his brute force on it a couple times and it is still standing tall. It is not ugly, the light beige color is neutral and blends well with the rest of the house as well as a baby gate can.
I would recommend this to someone but I would also appreciate any partial refund or store credit Amazon would like to bestow upon me for my troubles..... Hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge....... OK, prolly not.