Door handing explained: left handle vs right handle, and what installers miss

Loxta Hardware, 12 August 2023

10 min read

TL;DR
Door handing describes which side a door’s hinges are on. The Loxta convention is the simplest version: stand outside the door, look at it, and the side the hinges are on is the handing. The handle sits opposite the hinges with the lever pointing back towards them. Most modern lever furniture is reversible on site, but ornate designs, sprung handles, and multipoint lock handles are usually handed at manufacture, meaning a left-hand and right-hand version are produced separately. Loxta marks every product clearly as symmetrical, left-handed, or right-handed, so the right hardware reaches the right door.

In this article

• The Loxta handing convention
• The lever and handle relationship
• What makes a handle handed
• Symmetrical vs handed levers, and why ornate designs are usually handed
• What installers miss: the multipoint lock issue
• The 240mm universal fitting solution
• How the Loxta convention relates to international systems
• How Loxta specifies handing on every product
• When to ask for help

Ask ten installers what door handing is and you’ll get ten correct answers. Ask them what handing actually changes about the specification, and the answers get a little sketchier.

Handing matters more than people think. It determines lever orientation, springing, multipoint lock compatibility, and for premium and ornate hardware in particular, whether the handle you’ve ordered is even the same shape as the one your customer expected. Get it wrong on site and you’re re-ordering, re-drilling, or convincing the client it was honestly meant to look that way (cue upside down product photos…).

This is the trade-grade explainer. We’ve made it the article we wished existed when we first had to start explaining the complexities of door handing and the impact on door handles.

The Loxta handing convention

We want to keep this as simple as possible.

Stand outside the door, look at it, and the side the hinges are on is the handing…easy

• Stand on the external side of the door, hinges on the left = left hand door
• Stand on the external side of the door, hinges on the right = right hand door

That’s our rule of thumb for standard hinged doors. No need to memorise reverse handing terminology, swing direction codes, or which side is the “pull side” until you absolutely have to.

For doors that don’t fit the standard model, the convention adapts:

• Sliding and patio doors: handing is the direction in which the door slides when looking at the door from the outside. A door that slides to the left to open is a left hand sliding door. A door that slides to the right is a right hand sliding door.

• Internal doors: defining “outside” is more tricky because internal spaces don’t have an obvious external side. The working rule is:

• For a bathroom, “outside” is the hallway, corridor or bedroom side

• For any room, “outside” is the side you approach from when entering

• As a rough rule of thumb, the side closest to the building’s entrance or main circulation route is “outside”

When in doubt, photograph the door with the room context visible and confirm with your supplier before ordering. A 30-second photo prevents a major re-order headache.

The lever and handle relationship

Once you know the door’s handing, the handle position follows automatically. There’s only one physical arrangement that works:

• The handle sits on the latch or lock side of the door. That’s the side opposite the hinges.
• The lever points back towards the hinges in its resting position.

On a Loxta left hand door (hinges on the left when viewed from outside), the handle is fitted on the right side of the door and the lever rests pointing from right to left, back across the door towards the hinges. On a right hand door, the mirror image: handle on the left, lever pointing right.

The handle’s handing matches the door’s handing. A left hand door takes a left hand handle. A right hand door takes a right hand handle. The two are the same physical relationship, described together.

The thing worth understanding is that this physical relationship is fixed. The only change is the language we use to describe it, and that’s where international conventions create some complications on this subject - we aren’t unified across the globe. We come back to that further down the article.

What makes a handle handed

For most modern interior lever furniture, fitting it to a left hand or right hand door is straightforward because the handle itself isn’t built for one specific direction. These are sometimes called universal, non-handed, dual-handed or reversible handles, and they fit both handings in simple scenarios.

But a good proportion of door hardware is handed at manufacture, meaning a left hand and right hand version are produced as separate products to cover a range of technical scenarios. There are three factors that contribute to making a handle handed:

1. Lever design. An asymmetric lever (curved, monkeytail, jet wing design, or with a directional ornamental ending) can only be fitted one way without the design being upside down. A symmetrical lever (straight, RTD Return to Door, or any design that’s identical when flipped) has a good chance of being universally handed (subject to constraints on springing and certain fixing requirements).

2. Fixing mechanism. In some scenarios, the backplates or roses on both sides of the door are not the same, and one specific backplate must be on the external side of the door. As an example, when installing a multipoint door handle the external plate does not have visible screw fittings to enhance security and stop someone simply unscrewing your door handles. Hence this constraint can contribute towards a handed door lever handle, subject to the design of the lever and the springing system.

3. Springing. This is the part most of us skip over, and it’s the most common cause of confusion on modern hardware.

The springing of a handle determines the direction and travel of the lever:

• Universal springing lets the lever travel both upwards and downwards from horizontal, and the lever can be flipped 180 degrees to allow dual handing. The handle can be fitted to a door of either handing and operate normally either way.
• Handed springing restricts the lever to travelling in one direction only, typically downwards. Depending on the fixings and lever design, this might cause the whole lever assembly to have a left hand or right hand designation.

The springing requirement is dictated by the lock the handle is paired with:

• Multipoint locks rely on the handle being able to operate both upwards and downwards. The downward action retracts the latch on entry. The upward action lifts the hooks and bolts into the engaged position before key locking. A multipoint lock needs a door handle with universal springing or to be unsprung by definition.
• Mortice locks (typical on internal doors and many single latch external doors) rely on downward operation only. A mortice lock can use door handles with handed springing, universal springing or unsprung, and many premium designs allow for these.

A handle can be made handed by any one of these three factors, or by a combination. Worth asking the supplier which factor applies if it isn’t obvious from the product description.

Symmetrical vs handed levers, and why ornate designs are usually handed

The clearest way to think about this is by product category.

Symmetrical universal handing levers appear most often in:

• Volume market interior levers, straight or plain designs
• Standard commercial lever furniture
• Most aluminium and stainless steel modern designs without sculpted profiles

These fit any door, any handing, any convention. One product code covers both left hand and right hand installations.

Handed levers appear most often in:

• Ornate and traditional designs. Period heritage levers with sculpted endings, monkeytail handles, swan necks, and decorative period reproductions are asymmetric by design. The shape is the product.
• Premium and architectural designs. Sweeping curves, asymmetric profiles, and design led levers from luxury manufacturers are intentionally directional. Symmetry isn’t the aesthetic.
• Sprung lever furniture for multipoint locks. Universal springing is required for the lock to operate, so the handle is built to operate both ways. On more premium product this is paired with a specific hand due to the design and orientation of the lever.

For high end residential, hospitality, and specifier grade projects, this is where handing mistakes become expensive. A symmetrical commercial lever costs little and ships universally. A handed luxury lever costs significantly more, ships per “hand”, and a wrong order means a delayed installation and a difficult conversation with the client.

What installers miss: the multipoint lock issue

On a mortice lock door, with an old school Victorian lever on plate door handle - getting the handing wrong is usually a 5 minute fix. Just swap the inside and outside lever and off you go.

On a multipoint lock, handing is built into the lock mechanism itself. The hooks, deadbolts, and rollers all engage in a fixed direction.

But most multipoint door handles are universal - what’s the issue? Most are, but as we go up the ladder into more premium and ornate designs - then that’s where installers tend to miss the need for declaring the handing. They order a monkeytail handle, and at the end of the job you have a confusing and interesting lever handle design compared to what was planned.

The cases where this catches people out:

• Retrofit on existing doors. The original multipoint was specified to one handing and the replacement handle has to match, even if the handle looks symmetrical to the eye.
• Sliding patio doors and bi-folds. These have their own handing conventions that diverge from the standard hinged door pattern. If you are unsure, ask us, or sketch a quick diagram to ensure there is no confusion on handing terminology.

The practical answer: on any multipoint lock retrofit or replacement, confirm the existing lock’s handing before specifying the new handle. That’s a 30-second job with the door in front of you, and it prevents a costly re-order.

The 240mm universal fitting solution

One technical detail worth knowing on retrofits: the euro cylinder centres or euro PZs on most UK multipoint locks fall into a small number of standard dimensions, but the handle screws don’t always match them.

The Loxta universal 240mm fitting centre system, used on STEALTH Commander and Image accommodates the majority of UK multipoint lock configurations by simply covering the existing door handle fixing points. This is the practical reason “easily retrofittable” is a real claim and not a marketing line. The screw fitting centres are designed to be above and below the lockcase so you can drill easily without having to find the exact screw centre and euro PZ centre match on a lever handle.

Alongside the flexibility of the 240mm fixing centres backplates, we also supply different backplate centres to suit other popular lock configurations, such as 211mm and 122mm fixing centres among others.

How the Loxta convention relates to international systems

If you only ever specify with one UK supplier, the Loxta convention is all you need. But specifiers and architectural ironmongers working across imported hardware will encounter other systems. There are three in active use globally.

DIN handing

• Used in Germany, the Netherlands, and across northern Europe
• Decided by viewing the door from the side where the hinges are visible when closed. On an inward opening door, that’s the inside. On an outward opening door, that’s the outside
• Hinges visible on the left = DIN left. Hinges visible on the right = DIN right
• You will notice this generates an opposite handing to our quick guide above
• Does this mean we can’t specify DIN Left or DIN Right to Loxta - absolutely not, don’t worry we will get it right for you

ANSI handing

• The US commercial convention
• Decided by viewing the door from the outside or secure side, regardless of swing direction
• Hinges on the left = LH. Hinges on the right = RH
• Reverse designations (LHR, RHR) describe doors that swing towards the viewer
• The Loxta convention closely resembles ANSI, because both view the door from the outside or approach side. The main simplification in the Loxta convention is that we don’t formally use reverse designations

BS EN / ISO handing

• The formal UK and international standard
• Uses the numerals 5 and 6 based on closing direction rather than left or right
• A “5” door closes clockwise viewed in plan from above. A “6” door closes counterclockwise.
• Most commonly seen on formal door schedules and architectural specifications rather than in everyday trade language.

The Loxta convention runs opposite to DIN for inward opening doors, because DIN views the system from the inside (the pull side) and Loxta views it from the outside. The same physical door is Loxta left and DIN right. For outward opening doors (commercial fire exits, lockers), the two conventions agree, because the pull side is the outside on an outward opening door.

Putting it together for a typical UK inward opening external door with hinges on the left as you stand outside:

Why this matters in practice. Imported European hardware is usually labelled DIN. A German multipoint lock marked “DIN-Rechts” is a Loxta left hand. An Italian sprung lever labelled “DIN-Links” is a Loxta right hand. The most common error on UK projects mixing imported product is treating DIN labels as if they used the Loxta or ANSI reference point. The fix is to check the DIN designation on imported product and convert it before ordering or specifying, or simply let us know what you need in your reference format - we will make it work.

How Loxta specifies handing on every product

Every Loxta lever product is marked clearly as one of three types:

• Universal handing. Symmetrical lever shape, universal springing, symmetrical fixing. One product code fits both left hand and right hand doors. Order, fit, done.
• Left handed. Asymmetric design, handed fixing, or handed springing configured for a Loxta left hand door (hinges on the left when viewed from outside).
• Right handed. The mirror image, configured for a Loxta right hand door.

For multipoint lock products, every product page also lists the fitting centre dimension (most commonly 122mm, 211mm or 240mm) and full compatibility information with the major UK multipoint lock configurations.

If you’re not sure whether the design you’re specifying is symmetrical or handed, or which handing your door is, our engineering team can confirm before you order.

When to ask for help

Door handing is straightforward on simple installations and surprisingly complex on multipoint retrofits, heritage doors, ornate designs, and international commercial specifications.

If you’re specifying for a project where handing matters and the answer isn’t obvious, particularly on multipoint lock replacements, ornate or premium handed levers, or any project mixing UK and imported hardware, Loxta’s engineering team can confirm compatibility and handing before you commit to an order. A few minutes upfront is always quicker than a wrong delivery.

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Originally published August 2023. Updated with the Loxta handing convention, expanded guidance on symmetrical vs handed levers, the springing distinction, and the relationship to international systems including DIN, ANSI, and BS EN/ISO.