Safety 1st Lift And Lock Security Gate

The only reason I gave this gate 4 stars instead of 5 is because it was a little hard to get it pressure fitted into my doorway. Once I had it positioned getting the handle back down was very difficult, but once I did the gate was very secure. My cats push off the top when they jump over it and the 50 pound dog has run into it a few times, and it's holding up just fine.

I looked at several types/prices of gates before settling on this one. We bought two - they were both installed within 10 minutes and they've been reliable and safe. We then went on to buy a third for my parents. We've got them hardware mounted but a nice feature is the ability to take them off the wall, leaving the hardware in place, for use somewhere else.

We used the previous model of this gate for several years until the release handle broke off. We were using it on a door to the outside to keep our Rottweilers out of the house. Now we need one to keep our toddler inside the house. I was very happy with the previous model, as it fit well in the door frame and the big, round pressure pads held the gate firmly in place. Also, the handle slid up and down easily and it was easy to get the gate in place, even with one hand.

The newer model requires two hands to put in place, and the handle is very hard to push down. Unless you hold the gate in place, one pressure pad will invariably get left out. Finally, even though the gate is adjusted for maximum pressure, it's still easy for a dog or a child to push the thing over completely. So it does not breed confidence. I'd really prefer having the old style, but this will have to do for now.

I bought two of these gates, as well as 2 more expensive metal gates that open and close for our hallways. These gates were purchased to keep our twins off the stairs going upstairs and downstairs and wouldn't be used very frequently, probably less than once every 2 weeks. So I thought these would be perfect. They were at first. They stayed in place and were secure. Then as we started taking them down every now and then, like I said, less than once every 2 weeks, they became less and less reliable and seemed to "strip" out and wouldn't hold securely. If you are going to put these in a doorway that won't be used much, then these might be ok. But for blocking stairways, which could be very harmful for kids, then I would not recommend this gate by Safety 1st. I would go with a more secure metal gate, as I am now shopping for!

I LOVE my other two metal gates with the one-hand open/close gates, both pressure mounted. They are perfect for high-traffic areas. They have been in place about a year now and are used many, many times a day. One of these is the Evenflo Simple Step in taupe color and the other is by Dreambaby.

This gate is awkward to open with two hands and nearly impossible to open with one. That leaves the third hand for the baby.
The main problem is the design of the lock. Instead of a latch, which most hardware mounted gates use, there are 2 rods with rubber pads on the ends that push against the door stops, which are mounted to the wall. The rods are moved in and out of the door by pulling on the large white handle at the top of the door. When the handle is down, the rods are pressed against the door stop, and when the handle is up, the rods pull back into the door. Unfortunately, the rods don't fully disengage from the door stops and there is still friction as the door opens. The handle itself has quite a bit of friction as one lifts it. The door itself is made of flexible plastic, so the entire door twists as one attempts to lift up on the handle while overcoming the lateral friction of the rod/door stop assembly. It eventually opens, but not without an incredible amount of two-handed difficulty. I have used many doors, and this has the worst design. I recommend a latch mechanism instead.