Reverse Bevel Doors Explained
, by United Doors and Locks, 4 min reading time
Reverse bevel means the door swings toward you from the secure side. Here is how to identify it and the four hardware decisions it changes.
Reverse bevel is a term that sounds like it describes the shape of the door edge, and it does — but what people actually use it to mean is simpler. A reverse bevel door swings toward you when you are standing on the secure side. It is an outswing door, and it changes four decisions on your hardware schedule.
Where the bevel comes from
The lock edge of a door is not cut square. It is bevelled, typically 1/8 inch in 2 inches, so the leading edge clears the frame as the door rotates. The bevel has to lean in the direction the door swings.
On an inswing door the bevel leans away from you as you look at it from outside. Flip the swing and the bevel leans the other way. That reversed edge is the reverse bevel, and because the swing and the bevel always agree, identifying one identifies the other.
How to tell in five seconds
Stand on the secure side — the side you would need a key to enter from. Look at the hinges.
- You can see the hinge knuckles: the door swings toward you. Reverse bevel.
- You cannot see them: the door swings away. Regular bevel.
In handing notation, reverse bevel doors are the ones marked LHR and RHR. Regular bevel doors are LH and RH.
What it changes
1. Hinge security
On a reverse bevel exterior door the hinge barrels sit on the outside, where anyone can reach them. Knock out the pins and the door can be lifted out of the frame with the lock still engaged. This is the single most important consequence of a reverse bevel, and the fix is inexpensive: specify non-removable pin hinges. The BB5 NRP ball bearing hinge carries a set screw that locks the pin in place while the door is closed, and the heavy weight BB5-HW NRP does the same for doors over 200 pounds or high-frequency openings.
2. Lock and latch handing
A latch bolt is bevelled to match the door. Fit a regular bevel latch into a reverse bevel door and the latch face will bind on the strike instead of riding smoothly into it. Cylindrical locks with reversible latches, like the LC2600 Series, handle either case. Mortise locks such as the ML1300 Series are handed and must be ordered correctly or field-reversed where the lock case allows it.
3. Closer mounting
On a reverse bevel door the closer usually ends up on the push side, because the pull side is outdoors. That means a parallel arm or top jamb mounting rather than a regular arm. A closer such as the 900 Series ships with a parallel arm bracket for exactly this reason, and it is worth confirming the arm type before the closer arrives rather than after.
4. Weather and stops
An outswing exterior door has its stop on the interior face, which changes how weatherstripping and the threshold work. The door closes against the stop from outside, so the seal is compressed by wind rather than fighting it — generally an advantage. What you lose is protection for the hinges and the closer, both of which are now exposed if the closer cannot be mounted inside.
Why buildings use reverse bevel at all
Egress. An outswing door moves with the crowd rather than against it, and codes require doors serving certain occupant loads to swing in the direction of exit travel. Any door that needs panic hardware is going to be an outswing door, which is why reverse bevel and exit devices turn up together so often. A rim device like the 8300B Heavy Duty Rim Device mounts on the interior face of an outswing door and releases the latch when somebody pushes the bar.
The mistake to avoid
Reverse bevel is not a defect and it is not unusual, but it is easy to miss when a door is measured from the wrong side. Determine which side is secure first, then read the hinges. If the door is a fire-rated assembly or on an egress path, confirm the swing against the drawings as well — the direction a door has to swing is often a code requirement rather than a preference.
Send us photographs of the opening from the secure side and we will confirm the bevel and hand before anything is ordered.