DS013 and DS011 Are Not the Same Kind of Thing

This article exists because of a search. Somebody typed "door stopper ds013 vs ds011" into Bing and arrived here, and they were right to expect a comparison — the two model numbers sit one apart in our own catalogue and look like siblings. They are not. DS013 is a door stopper. DS011 is a flush bolt. They are not variants of one product, they are two different products that happen to be numbered next to each other, and if the numbering misled somebody enough to make them search for a comparison then the honest thing is to publish the answer rather than let them work it out from a photograph.

A door stop takes an opening door and stops it before it hits something. That is the whole of the job. DS013 is a zinc alloy floor or wall stop measuring 110 × 66mm, available in ten finishes. Its whole design problem is arresting a moving door without transmitting the shock into the fixing, which is why the working part is rubber and the metal exists to hold the rubber in the right place and survive being kicked.

A flush bolt is the opposite. It holds a leaf shut and still, and it is fitted into the edge of the door so nothing protrudes. DS011 is a brass flush bolt in nine finishes. On a pair of doors it is what keeps the inactive leaf from moving so the active leaf has something solid to latch against; without it a double door flexes and the lock never feels right no matter how good the lock is. Nothing about it stops a door swinging — that is not what it is for.

The third item in this family of confusions is a door holder, sometimes sold as a hold-open. It keeps a door open on purpose, which is not the same as stopping it. A stop is passive and takes an impact; a holder is active and resists a closing force, often a door closer's. Specifying a stop where a holder was wanted produces a door that closes every time somebody lets go of it, and the complaint that comes back is "the stopper does not work" when the stopper is working exactly as designed.

So the selection is a sequence of three questions, and none of them is about finish. What is the door doing wrong — swinging too far, drifting shut, or moving when it should be still? Where can you fix something — floor, wall, or the door edge? And what is the floor made of, because a stop fixed into 6mm of tile over screed is a stop that will come out with the tile.

For stops specifically, projection is the number that decides whether it works, and it is the one most often left off an enquiry. Our range runs from low floor domes to tall wall stops: DS05 is a Ø44 × 24mm floor dome, DS09 is 42mm long, DS010 is a Ø42mm dome, and DS01 is a stainless steel wall stop 96mm high with a 70mm projection on a 34mm base. That 70mm is not a styling choice — it is the distance between the wall and the point on the door that will hit it, and if the handle projects further than the stop does, the handle finds the wall first.

One consequence of that worth stating plainly: a door stop is selected against the handle, not against the door. Measure from the wall to the outermost point of the lever or knob when the door is open, and pick a stop at least that long. This is the single most common reason a stop is ordered, installed, and then replaced.

And on our own numbering: DS is not a product-type prefix here. It runs across stops (DS01, DS02, DS05, DS09, DS010, DS013, DS022) and it also carries DS011, which is a flush bolt. We would rather say so than let the sequence imply a family that does not exist. When you send an enquiry, name the job — "floor stop, 70mm projection, satin nickel" — and the model number becomes a check rather than the whole specification.