Customer Reviews

Cardinal Pet Gates Stairway Special Pet Gate, Black, SS-30

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I first looked at this gate because I needed a gate that could be installed on an angle. It was between this gate and the Kidco Angle Mount. The Kidco gate was a little cheaper, but I heard the installation was horrible.. so that scared me off. So, I purchased this gate and couldn't be happier!
Pros:
1) VERY easy install. 20 minutes, and that included getting all the tools and levels out of the garage and keeping them out of my 1 year old's mouth :)
2) The angle mount ability is great. Mine is at about a 25 degree angle and it looks like it could even angle more. Very nice feature.
3) The quality of this gate is superb. Lightweight yet sturdy and secure.
4) Onto the latching mechanism.. some folks on here have claimed that its hard to latch and unlatch... I just don't see how thats possible. I've had the gate installed for a couple days now, which means i've had to latch and unlatch the thing about 100 times already. Hands full, hands empty, right side, left side, doesnt' matter folks. It's very easy to operate for an adult. Don't let those other reviews scare you.
5) Price - for the quality and functionality of this gate, it was worth every penny!

No Cons! Well done cardinal gates!

I ordered this item overnight using my Amazon Prime account, because I wanted to have this gate installed at the top of my stairs before I go out of town for work. It arrived a little after 12PM, and I took it out of the box at a little after 1PM. I had it installed before 1:30PM. The instructions are clearly illustrated, clearly written, simple, and very easy to follow. Pay attention to the illustrations so you can tell which way the parts are oriented. It makes a difference.

This gate is intended to keep the dogs from going upstairs, but would be equally useful in keeping a toddler from falling down the stairs, or (if mounted at the bottom of the stairs) from going up them. There is also an optional "one way" stop, so you can choose to have the gate swing in both directions, or only one. I chose only one direction, just to prevent my kids from possibly leaning on it and falling down the stairs.

The only reason I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 is because when I hover my cursor over the 5th star, it says "I love it!". I'm sorry, but I just don't love things like this. I like it because it does exactly what it's supposed to do.

This is an excellent gate. I think the previous reviewer must have installed it incorrectly because my gate opens very easily ... easily for an adult, anyway. You can open it with one hand while you have your child in the other. It is a high quality product. You can tell it is very sturdy.

I just received this gate, and I am very pleased that it is all metal- no plastic hinges or latches that I hear of breaking on many of the other models. I like the fact, too, that Cardinal Gates only makes gates. Seems like the other brands that are cheaply made don't concentrate enough on the construction of theirs.
Installation wasn't too bad. It took some time to get everything just right so it latches properly. Pretty simple instructions. Opening is not as easy as other gates, but it is definitely much safer!! The only way I see an accident happening is if you forget to relatch it after going through (doesn't do it automatically) or if you don't mount it properly and it comes out of the wall (don't see that happening.) There is no way the gate itself could break.
Make sure to mount everything level. Also, I got the impression from their website that it came with clamps to attach to a rail, which I guess you would buy separately. I just mounted mine into drywall on both sides, so I didn't need it anyway.

I was initially impressed with the all steel construction of this baby gate. The installation was pretty straight forward until you have to align everything. This is were it all fell apart. I took me an hour adjusting the mounts and eye screws that help you level the gate. My wife had to remind me that this was a 77 dollar gate and I shouldn't destroy it in a fit of anger. I finally got the gate to easily rest in the mount. There are two latching mechanisms. The first requires the user too lift the gate out of its dock position. This was easily accomplished. The second lock clamps around the top hitch. I realized the tolerances on this lock were so tight that any hope of one handed unlocking would be impossible. It took my wife 5 minutes before she could unlock it. The mechanism is simple. It's just so difficult to get the thing to unlock. May in version 2 they will fix this.

Chris

We're pretty happy with this gate; it does what we bought it to do. If you're handy with simple tools, installation is reasonably fast and easy. I mounted the hinge and latch to steel fence posts, so I had to drill holes and find some screws. The whole process took about an hour.

Two product improvement suggestions:

First, the latch is a non-starter. Back to the drawing board, guys. After watching guests get frustrated fiddling around with it, I drilled out the pin and removed that latch mechanism completely. Now we just lift the gate up to open/close. I do not recommend removing the latch if you're trying to keep toddlers from opening the gate! We're just using it for to confine a puppy, so no problem.

Second, we don't like the "curved" bottom rail design, especially when using the gate with the 10.5" extension. The back-to-back curves accentuate the joint between the gate and the extension, so the finished product just doesn't look right. It would look much better with square bottom corners. (Note: Some of the Amazon photos of individual components show the rounded corner at the top ... this is incorrect.)

We're very pleased with the construction, installation and difficulty of this gate. It had good instructions and installed very easily. The top of our stairs are secure.

Unlike another reviewer, I think this gate is just difficult enough to open. A five year old can open it, once they're shown how (and you'll want them to by that age). You may also have to instruct a visiting adult on how to open it one handed, but at least your younger children will not be opening it. Go to youtube and search for videos of small children opening other gates. It's scary.

I bought this for the stairs in my house because one of my kids had pushed down the other gate and fell down the stairs (they are fine), but it freaked me and my wife out. So we went online and searched for gates. We found this gates reviews all high in saying that it was a very solid gate but hard to open. After the gate arrived I went through and looked at the hardware for mounting and they were not that great for dry wall or even for a stud install. So I bought some heavy duty hardware for it maybe 10 dollars at Walmart. Now to the install it was a very easy install took me about 30-35min to install the gates with the new hardware. I even put it over the stairs and hung on it (I weigh 210pds) and it held me with no problem. NOW most people say the opening and closing of the gate is very hard I have to disagree its really easy to do, I can do it one handed. I do have to say that my wife could not open the gate until I showed her which she can now open it easily with one hand. Our kids have pushed on the gate pulled on it and have tried to open it on numerous occasion and it has been both to hard to open and strong enough to keep them from falling down the stairs. I highly recommend this gate. If we ever need a new gates I will be buying another one of these gates.
Thanks for reading.

This gate installs much like others of its genre - a metal bracket is mounted on the wall, eyebolts are screwed into the gate, and a vertical rod serves as the hinge. On the latch side, a smaller bracket is installed on the wall and a bracket with a couple of pins is attached to the gate. The latch mechanism has two arms terminating in hooks which grip a washer-shaped part to hold the gate pins into the latch bracket. In operation, one pushes down on the two tabs to release the hooks, then pulls upward to release the gate proper. Easier to operate than to describe!

Since we were installing this on an outdoor deck with metal railing, we did not want to drill into the railing posts. While similar parts are available from the manufacturer [...], we cut 4" x 1.5" x 0.75" pieces of redwood and used galvanized hex bolts to form clamps to go around the railing posts. We mounted the hinge and latch brackets to these redwood blocks. We did purchase the "outdoor hardware pack" from the vendor to obtain stainless steel eyebolts, screws, and other bits Cardinal Gates Stainless Steel Hardware for SS30.

Our only complaint is that the gate had, applied to one end, what we call "lawyer tags" - dire warnings that theoretically absolve liability. These were quite ugly, were not even applied neatly (they were crooked and one had been applied over another), and were quite difficult to remove without damaging the finish. We finally used penetrating oil and a plastic putty knife. While we understand the (unfortunate) necessity of companies to provide these warnings, they should at least not impact the appearance of the product, or should be reasonably easy to remove.

Overall, we would recommend this product.

I agree that it's easy to install this gate. I bought the original, plus the 10-inch extension to fit the stairway on my deck (stop my toddlers falling down the 5 steps to the yard below).

I'm sorry, I just don't see how this could be easy for anyone to open. I understand how the mechanism is supposed to work (pinch the little tabs together, and lift). I don't know whether my particular unit had a thicker-than-usual coat of paint that makes it all a lot stiffer to operate than it needs to be. I can definitely say that tabs you pinch with your fingers could be bigger.

Overall, the whole thing is too stiff to operate with one hand. I'm keeping it because I typically only need to shut it while the kids are out on the deck, then leave it open the rest of the time, and it's hard to find an operable gate in this width (53").