Summer Infant Sure and Secure Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate, White
by Summer Infant, Inc.
|
List Price: Our Price: $49.99 You Save: $10.00 (17%) Availability: Usually ships in 2 to 5 weeks Category: Baby Product See more product details |
|---|
Baby Products Reviews of Summer Infant Sure and Secure Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate, White
Customer Review: Seems like a great gate, but have yet to puppy test it :-)
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought this gate because the reviews were generally good, and the price was better than many gates, plus it included two extensions - one 5" and one 10". I am using it as a puppy gate. The height is 36", so I don't expect a beagle to be able to jump it, but at the same time I think my cat would find it easy to escape from the dog. Hopefully I can teach her to jump it.
The doorways I am trying to fit are 31"-32", so without the extensions the tension bolts do have to come almost all the way out to fit in the doorway. Despite that it seems to be sturdy enough that a beagle cannot push it down, and I have shook it and wiggled it myself without it moving much, but we'll see. I get my puppy in a few days.
It looks pretty nice and was easy enough to install with the little wrench that comes with it. One of the bottom tension bolts is a little tilted though, bringing down the stability, but I have a suspicion our doorway is not perfectly parallel. I may have to put something there to even it out. It comes with 4 wall mounts, adhesive pads to place them, and screws with wall anchors to secure them, which are required if you use it at the top of stairs, which I won't be.
Not as cheap looking as a lot of baby gates, and matches our white trim well. It's all white, which I favored over having a large gray contraption on the top or bottom of the gate. Having it in front of the laundry room matches rather well actually.
I don't have a problem with the door width or the one handed operation. The opening is about 18 3/4", but there is a door stopper that sticks out a bit making it 17 1/2". This is REMOVABLE, making the gate swing open both ways. I don't have a problem with the width, as I am 5'8" and 125 lbs. As far as vacuuming, you're going to have to lift the vacuum because there is a floor bar. God forbid people do a little work to vacuum the room on the other side of the gate!
Unfortunately the box arrived in awful condition so I thought the gate might be damaged. I ordered the gate from Amazon. It seems the gate was sitting in a warehouse for a very long time, because the little wrench it comes with to tighten the tension bolts was rusted or otherwise oxidized in places. That doesn't affect it's functionality at all though. The box and gate though are dusty and a little dirty. The box was taped shut, probably for shipping, but I am torn between thinking the gate was returned or just forgotten in some high humidity warehouse. If it was returned it may malfunction and I may have to return it myself.
Hope this is informative.
UPDATE: Got my baby beagle, and oddly enough, he can squeeze through the gate at the bottom section near the wall when it arches away a little bit to make room for baseboards. If my doorway was a little smaller he wouldn't be able to fit, but as it is he can squeeze through and get at the cat food, etc. I haven't let him since he discovered it, and he will soon be too big to squeeze through.
My cat on the other hand is so lazy. She will jump out of the laundry room over the gate, but I have not yet witnessed her jump IN to the laundry room to eat. My housemate says he's seen her do it twice though. It may have something to do with the wood floor going in, and the tile going out.
Customer Review: Returned it in favor of Hands Free Gate
Summary: 2 Stars
At one time, we were using both a Hands Free gate (upstairs) and this prouct (downstairs). Both door openings were equally wide. Both products were equally easy to install. We ended up returning this one, and buying a second Hands Free. Here's the comparison:Extra Tall Gate:
1) Comes with extensions (built into price). Don't be fooled by any of these products - you will ALWAYS need at least one extension.
2) Self-closing, BUT it is very easy to get the gate out of alignment. When this happens, it won't always self-close in one direction.
3) Although latch is very simple, it DOES require one hand to open it. Picture yourself carrying a 20 lb child in one arm, and a jug of formula in the opther, and consider how you will open the gate.
4) Because these gates use compression (instead of drilling into walls) they have a bar across the bottom. The bar on this gate is thicker, and more of a tripping hazard. Hands-free has a ramp.
5) The gate misaligns EASILY, even when securely pressed between walls or door openings. This is because when it swings shut, it usually slams. Enough of this and it always knocks the assembly out of alignment. By 'alignment' I mean all four pads that contact the wall must be in a perfect plane. Misalignment means one of the pads (usually the top ones) slipped.
6) When the gate slams shut, it makes noise. Therefore, you always need to close it gently -- or worse, sometimes leave it 'closed, but not latched' -- so as to not wake sleeping babies. The danger in this is that other people may think the gate is latched and safe. Mom might have left it unlatched to not wake the baby; dad later thinks it's closed and locked because it's self-closing... Not good.
7) Yeah, it's tall... Extra-tall even... In fact, it's about 4" taller than most gates. Are they implying that most gates are unsafe since they are shorter?
Hands-free
1) You will NEED to buy at least one extension. No one in America has doors narrow enough to fit the gate alone... A gate + 1 extension equals the price of the Tall Gate.
2) NOT self-closing. This might sound bad, but if the parents leave the gate wide open when the kids are sleeping, it is obvious to all that it is open.
3) Bar at bottom has an anti-tripping ramp.
4) Truly hands-free! I can carry my twins - opening is extremely simple with your foot.
5) These just don't seem to ever get out of alignment. Remember, the gate is never slamming shut, so there is no force to misalign it.
The Hands-Free gate just has too many things going for it. Check out the super long list of 5-star reviews. The only 1-star reviews complain about a poorly designed foot pedal for the latch. The models that are being sold now have fixed that problem.
While there is nothing truly wrong with this gate (assuming no one leaves it unlocked), the Hands-free is simply much better.
Customer Review: Horrible Latching Mechanism
Summary: 1 Stars
After trying out the hugely-recommended The First Years Hands Free Gate and discovering that it REALLY doesn't fit anything less than 29" (I was shy by 1/4"), I tried out this gate - it had everything included at a good price, it looked nice, and it was 1" narrower than they gate I had previously tried.
Unfortunately, I was shocked by how poor the locking mechanism on this gate is. I might use it for a pet that doesn't challenge barriers, but my one year old (birthday yesterday) got it open in under a minute by the oh-so-intellectual process of shaking back and forth on the gate (her favorite gate activity).
You see, the tightness of the upper tensioners tremendously affects the upper locking mechanism. Too-tight and mom and dad can't open it. Loose enough for you to get open is also loose enough for the kids to open. Also, when you do get it loose enough to open, I found that it wasn't as firm in the door opening as I would like (the kids leaning and pushing on it could tilt it over).
The reason that this happens is that the litle lever/button you pull back doesn't actually retract the locking mechanism. It retracts a wimpy little secondary piece of plastic that is beveled on both sides. The tiny piece of plastic that actually locks the upper portion of the gate when closed is just a spring loaded piece of plastic smaller than a pencil. This piece doesn't retract when the lever/button is pulled. In fact, it isn't even on the opening gate side, but protrudes from the "wall" side of the gate. As an example, I experimented and taped back the plastic piece that retracts with the button and the door still locked fine at several tensioner levels. Taping back the plastic piece that doesn't retract prevented the upper latch from ever locking.
You may think the bottom latch would be enough, but it is simply a small knob held only by gravity into a small opening in the base of the gate. Especially given the height of the gate it is easy for kids to get more than enough leverage to torque the gate opening and lift the knob out of the small opening.
If you decide to test out just how bad this gate is yourself, get a parent on either side of the the gate to catch your child when they shove through. With the gate pushing back on the child while they shake the gate, they can get a bit spring-loaded and when it opens, they are so off-balance that they rocket through the gate.
Customer Review: Great gate, once you get it to work!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is my first review. Never left one before, but had to add one here given how frustrating this gate was.
It works great, once you get it to work. Before that though, I was ready to pitch it. Whether it closes shut or not was totally inconsistent which, for me, seems to defeat the purpose of a self-closing gate. If you can't be reasonably sure that it's going to close itself, then what's the point in getting a self-closing gate?
Anyhow, this is what worked for me.
First of all, tension on the bottom tension knobs really doesn't matter, as long as it makes contact with the door frame and is tight. My point is, they'll talk about adjusting the tension on all of the knobs, but the bottom knobs tighten a rigid metal bar. So obviously, there isn't much adjusting to do on the bottom knobs. Either it's tight or it isn't. The only real adjusting is on the top knobs, which opens and closes the upper latch set.
Second, for me, the reason why I think this doesn't work is because the silver pin which falls out of the lower latch set and into the hole in the bottom of the frame gets caught on the bottom frame. The bottom frame is a rectangular, metal bar with a rounded plastic molding that the bottom latch set makes contact with. Because the plastic moulding is rounded, the silver pin slides right up and over it, into the hole, which secures the bottom half of the door shut. But, when the pin makes contact with the flat (not rounded) metal bar first, it doesn't slide up. It just hits it and bounces back. I could see this because the paint was wearing away on the metal bar where the pin was hitting it. So, basically, the way the door is designed, the bottom of the door and the lower latch set all swing to low, causing the silver pin to contact the flat bottom frame first instead of the rounded plastic moulding. What I did was I wedged (and taped) some cardboard next to the door hinge between the bottom of the door and the lower door frame. It lifts the door up about a half inch, the pin contacts the plastic molding instead of the metal frame, and the thing works perfect every time. Never misses.
Customer Review: Awful!
Summary: 1 Stars
I've got 4 children and have used a few different gates in my time. We had one from our second child that we loved for our entrance into the kitchen but it finally broke and our fourth is still into everything so a gate was a must. I saw this and thought, "Wow, it does everything I need!". It's true, it's taller than most (my #4 is a climber and has come very close to climbing over standard gates), pressure mounted (we are putting this between a metal covered corner and thin paneling under a breakfast bar), and one handed operation while swinging both ways. Sounded perfect for us.
Then reality settled in. It took less than 1hr for my 20mo old to figure out how to open it. Yep, that's right. 20mo old, through it in under an hour. The latch just isn't designed to stop a determined child. It's 1/8" (maybe smaller) tongue that slides back with a thumb plate. He yanked on it and popped it out. Then he figured out how to pull it up and into the kitchen he went. Hmmm...maybe we didn't have it tight enough? We tightened it to the point where the auto-latch thing didn't work and we could barely latch it ourselves and still he got through. No matter how tight or how loose we made it, he could open it. We've had it a week and it's going back to the store to try something else.
For the record, no, my #4 is NOT a huge tank. He is tall (hence the reason I liked the extra-tall gate) but he is only 30% in weight. If he could do it, so could just about any child that put their mind to it. I shudder to think of these at the top of stairs.
I did call customer service and was told no refund through them but I could trade for a different one. All the ones that would work in that area had the same latch. No thanks!