What Ives Door Accessories Are Used in Commercial Door Assemblies and How Are They Specified?

A comprehensive specification reference for Ives commercial door accessories including stops, holders, coordinators, silencers, flush bolts, kick plates, and edge guards — available through CDF Distributors via ASSA ABLOY/FlashShip distribution.

This guide answers: What Ives door accessories are used in commercial door assemblies and how are they specified?

The Role of Door Accessories in Commercial Construction

Door accessories are the finish hardware components that protect doors and walls from damage, control door movement, reduce noise, and coordinate the operation of paired doors. While they receive less specification attention than primary hardware like locksets and closers, door accessories are essential to the long-term performance and appearance of commercial door openings. Missing or improperly specified accessories result in wall damage, door damage, noise complaints, and premature hardware failure.

Ives, an ASSA ABLOY brand, is one of the most comprehensive door accessory product lines in the commercial hardware industry. The Ives catalog includes wall stops, floor stops, overhead stops, door holders, silencers, coordinators, flush bolts, edge guards, kick plates, door pulls, and protection plates. These products are manufactured in materials ranging from cast iron to stainless steel, with finishes matching the full range of commercial architectural hardware finishes.

Specifying Ives accessories as part of a complete door hardware schedule ensures compatibility with the primary hardware and consistent finish appearance across the opening. When accessories are omitted from the specification and sourced separately in the field, the result is often mismatched finishes, incompatible mounting dimensions, and inferior-quality components that fail prematurely.

Wall Stops and Floor Stops

Door stops prevent the door from contacting the adjacent wall, casework, or equipment when opened fully. Without a stop, the door handle or lever strikes the wall surface, creating damage to both the wall finish and the hardware. Over time, this damage progresses from cosmetic (paint scuffing, drywall dents) to structural (hole in the drywall, broken hardware).

Wall stops mount to the wall surface or baseboard at the point where the door would contact the wall. They consist of a rigid or semi-rigid bumper mounted on a bracket. Ives wall stops are available in cast brass, stainless steel, and aluminum, with bumper materials including rubber and neoprene. The bumper absorbs the impact of the door and prevents damage to both the wall and the door hardware.

Floor stops mount to the floor at the point where the door edge passes when fully open. Floor stops are used when wall mounting is not practical — for example, when the door opens into a glass wall, a corridor intersection, or an area where no suitable wall surface exists for a wall stop. Ives floor stops include dome-style stops (a simple raised bumper), hook-style stops (which hold the door in the open position), and heavy-duty floor stops for high-traffic institutional applications.

Overhead stops mount on the frame header or the wall above the door and use a friction arm or spring to arrest the door's travel at a preset angle. Overhead stops are common in institutional applications — schools, hospitals, and government buildings — where floor-mounted and wall-mounted stops are damaged by heavy traffic or cleaning equipment. Ives overhead stops are available in surface-mounted and concealed configurations.

• Wall stops: most common type, mount to wall or baseboard, protect wall from door lever/handle impact
• Floor stops: mount to floor surface, used when wall mounting is impractical, available with or without hold-open feature
• Overhead stops: mount to frame header or wall, arrest door travel with friction or spring mechanism, resistant to damage from floor cleaning

Door Silencers

Door silencers are small rubber or neoprene bumpers that are pressed into holes drilled in the door frame stop. When the door closes, it contacts the silencer rather than the metal or wood frame, reducing the noise of closing and cushioning the door-to-frame impact. Silencers also help prevent air infiltration by providing a compression seal between the door and the frame.

Standard practice specifies three silencers per single door (two on the lock side and one on the hinge side header) and two silencers per leaf on paired doors. Ives silencers are available in rubber and neoprene compounds with varying durometer (hardness) ratings. Softer silencers provide greater noise reduction but compress more, which may affect the latchbolt engagement. Harder silencers provide less compression and are used with mechanical locks that require precise door-to-frame spacing.

Silencers are often overlooked during specification but are included in standard hardware group specifications per DHI (Door and Hardware Institute) recommended practice. Omitting silencers results in noisy door operation and accelerated wear on the lock latch and strike.

Door Coordinators for Paired Doors

A door coordinator is a device mounted on the frame header of a paired (double) door opening that ensures the inactive leaf closes before the active leaf. This closing sequence is necessary when the active leaf has an overlapping astragal that must seat against the closed inactive leaf to provide fire separation, weather sealing, or security.

Without a coordinator, the active leaf may close first, blocking the inactive leaf from closing completely. This leaves a gap in the opening that compromises fire ratings, security, and weather protection. On fire-rated paired openings, a coordinator is required to ensure both leaves close and latch in the correct sequence during a fire event.

Ives coordinators use a bar mechanism mounted on the frame header. When both doors are opened, the coordinator bar spans the opening and prevents the active leaf from closing until the inactive leaf passes the coordinator bar. The inactive leaf pushes the bar out of the way as it closes, which then releases the active leaf to close in sequence.

Coordinator selection depends on the door width (each leaf), the type of closer installed, and whether the opening is fire-rated. Fire-rated openings require UL-listed coordinators that have been tested as part of the fire-rated assembly.

Door Holders and Hold-Open Devices

Door holders maintain a door in the open position for convenience, ventilation, or traffic flow. Manual door holders require a person to physically engage the hold-open mechanism (such as a hook or friction device). Electromagnetic door holders use an electromagnet mounted on the wall or floor that holds a steel keeper plate attached to the door.

Electromagnetic door holders are commonly used on fire-rated doors that must remain open during normal use but close automatically upon fire alarm activation. The door closer provides the closing force; the electromagnetic holder overcomes the closer's force to keep the door open. When the fire alarm system activates, the electromagnetic holder de-energizes and releases the door, allowing the closer to pull the door shut.

Ives electromagnetic door holders are available in wall-mounted, floor-mounted, and overhead-mounted configurations. Wall-mounted holders are the most common and mount to the wall adjacent to the opening. Floor-mounted holders are used in wide corridors where wall mounting is not practical. The holder must be connected to the fire alarm system so it releases on alarm activation.

Flush Bolts for Inactive Leaves

Flush bolts are manual locking devices installed in the edge of the inactive leaf of a paired door opening. When engaged, the flush bolts project into the frame header and threshold (or floor), securing the inactive leaf in the closed position. The active leaf's lock then engages the inactive leaf's astragal or the frame, securing the opening.

Ives flush bolts are available in manual, automatic, and fire-rated configurations. Manual flush bolts require a person to slide the bolt into the locked or unlocked position using a lever on the door edge. Automatic flush bolts engage automatically when the door closes and disengage when the door is opened, eliminating the need for manual operation.

On fire-rated paired openings, automatic flush bolts are typically required to ensure the inactive leaf latches positively when the door closes during a fire event. Manual flush bolts are not acceptable on fire-rated openings because they may be left in the unlocked position, allowing the inactive leaf to swing open during a fire.

Flush bolt selection involves specifying the bolt length, extension, backset, and face plate dimensions to match the door thickness and frame configuration. Ives provides flush bolts for standard 1-3/4-inch doors as well as thicker doors used in specialized applications.

Kick Plates, Mop Plates, and Edge Guards

Protection plates — kick plates, mop plates, and armor plates — are metal sheets mounted on the face of the door to protect the door surface from damage caused by foot traffic, carts, wheelchairs, and cleaning equipment. Without protection plates, door surfaces deteriorate rapidly in high-traffic commercial environments, requiring costly refinishing or door replacement.

Kick plates are mounted on the push side of the door, typically starting at the bottom edge and extending 8 to 16 inches high. Mop plates are narrower (4 to 6 inches) and are mounted at the bottom of the door to protect against mop and cleaning equipment damage. Armor plates extend the full width and a significant portion of the height of the door (typically 34 to 40 inches), providing maximum protection in high-abuse environments such as hospitals, schools, and correctional facilities.

Edge guards protect the vertical edges of the door from damage caused by cart and equipment traffic. They are particularly important on doors in healthcare facilities where bed frames, IV poles, and equipment carts regularly contact the door edges. Ives edge guards are available in stainless steel and aluminum, in widths that wrap the door edge and a portion of each face.

Material options for all protection plates include stainless steel (most durable, available in satin and mirror finishes), brass (decorative, used in architectural and hospitality applications), aluminum (lightweight, economical), and bronze (architectural applications). Ives protection plates are available in standard sizes and can be custom-ordered for non-standard door dimensions.

Specifying Ives Accessories as Part of a Complete Hardware Schedule

The Door and Hardware Institute (DHI) publishes recommended hardware groups that define the standard accessories for each type of commercial door opening. These groups specify the appropriate stops, silencers, protection plates, and other accessories based on the door type, location, and traffic level. Ives products are referenced in DHI hardware group specifications across the commercial hardware industry.

When specifying door hardware for a project, accessories should be included in the hardware schedule alongside the primary hardware (hinges, locksets, closers, exit devices). This ensures that accessories are included in the bid, ordered with the primary hardware, and delivered to the jobsite at the right time. Accessories specified after the fact are frequently omitted, substituted with lower-quality alternatives, or installed incorrectly.

• Include stops, silencers, and protection plates in the hardware schedule for every opening
• Specify coordinators for all paired openings with overlapping astragals
• Specify flush bolts (automatic for fire-rated) for all inactive leaves
• Match accessory finishes to primary hardware finishes for visual consistency
• Specify electromagnetic door holders for fire-rated openings that must remain open during normal use

How CDF Distributors Supplies Ives Door Accessories

CDF Distributors provides Ives door accessories through the ASSA ABLOY distribution network, specifically via the FlashShip fulfillment channel. As an ASSA ABLOY sub-brand, Ives accessories ordered through CDF ship alongside other ASSA ABLOY hardware components — locksets, closers, exit devices — on a single consolidated order. This eliminates the need to source accessories separately from a different distributor.

CDF's ProBuilder tool includes Ives accessories in the hardware configuration for complete door assemblies. When configuring an opening in ProBuilder, the user can add stops, silencers, protection plates, coordinators, flush bolts, and other accessories to the hardware schedule. ProBuilder tracks the accessory selections alongside the primary hardware, ensuring a complete package when the assembly ships.

For specification assistance, CDF's sales engineering team can review a project's door and hardware schedule and identify any missing accessories. This review is particularly valuable for projects with paired openings (coordinators, flush bolts), fire-rated openings (electromagnetic holders, automatic flush bolts), and high-traffic institutional openings (protection plates, heavy-duty stops).

Configure Your Door Assembly

CDF's ProBuilder tool allows contractors and facility managers to configure complete door, frame, and hardware assemblies online. During configuration, you can select the specific components discussed in this guide and receive an instant quote.

For assistance or to order a complete door assembly, call (855) 769-9895 or email sales@cdfdoors.com. CDF's sales team is available to help you specify the right components for your project.

Frequently Asked Questions

About This Guide

This guide reflects CDF Distributors' standard specifications and field-tested recommendations used by commercial contractors nationwide. The information is provided for specification and selection purposes. Always verify requirements with the Authority Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) for your project location.

For questions or to order a complete door assembly, contact CDF at (855) 769-9895 or sales@cdfdoors.com. Configure your assembly online at ProBuilder: cdfdistributors.com.