Customer Reviews

Evenflo Top of Stair Plus Gate

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Enough has already been said about the quality of *this* gate. I'm submitting this review to clarify that the recall mentioned by some reviewers was for the older Evenflo models 10502 and 10512 Top-of-Stair Plus Wood Gates. This product, model 10513, replaces the 10512 and is also what Evenly was providing as a replacement for the faulty units.

OK, I'll say a little bit about the gate too. Installation was a snap. You get a template, a strip of paper you tape to one side with marks that say where to drill. You use that to mount the gate to one side. The way the thing is designed, once one side is up you use the gate itself to line up where the brackets on the other side should go. The whole thing takes maybe 10 minutes.

Opening and closing is done with one hand by squeezing the gate latch, sliding the gate sideways a few inches until it clears the brackets, and then swinging it out of the way.

If you're buying one of these, the only suggestion I might have is to mount the lower hinge side bracket a bit off center. The goal would be to have the gate angled down, just a hair, in the direction you want it to swing open so that when it is unlatched it will stay fully open and out of the way. That's what I did while installing it and it seems to work quite well. Specifically, looking at the side with the hinge brackets, I wanted the gate to swing open to the left so I mounted the lower bracket 3/16" to the right of center. The result is that when the gate swings open it is also swinging slightly downward and that's what keeps it open.

BTW, I feel that honest, effective reviews can take the place of first-hand experiences that are lacking in online shopping. I've always appreciated the help I've received from other reviewers and work hard to return the favor as best as I can. I hope you found this review helpful and if there was anything you thought was lacking or unclear leave a comment and I'll do what I can to fix it.

We've had this gate in use at home for a year. So why write a review now? Because we just replaced the gate.

My husband fell down the stairs this weekend. Thankfully he wasn't injured more than just a couple bruises. He did however break the closed baby gate at the bottom of the stairs when he fell against it. The gate didn't disengage, but a couple of the wooden slats on it were broken off the bottom railing.

Think about that folks; it took the weight of an adult man falling against the gate to cause it to break.

My toddler has stood on the bottom rail of the gate and shaken it numerous times in the past year. Never once has said toddler managed to open the gate or do damage to it.

Now don't you want something that sturdy in your home?

Best of all when the gate was broken this weekend a quick call to Babies-R-Us confirmed that they had a replacement in store. An hour later I'd driven to the store, purchased the gate, and installed the replacement into the existing undamaged wall bracket hardware. The second gate fit into the wall hardware exactly the same as the original gate had. I didn't need to fiddle or adjust any tension settings the way I have with other gates in the past.

For my money, this gate is one of the best on the market. Reliable every time and a great price.

I have to say that I do feel the gate isn't as sturdy as metal but with a wood gate you are going to have some give and flexibilty.(I bought this to replace a metal pressure mount that my son shook til it fell on him) But once installed it is extremely stable and definitely not going to be ripped out of the wall. My son and the boy I watch both 16 months shake it and I have good faith in it. I have it at the bottom of the stairs but if I needed to I would put it at the top.

As for putting it up I chose to make a trip to the hardware store as opposed to buying a kit, which I would've needed two of since it is installed into drywall on one side and against a bannister on the other. I bought a 2x3 stud board, 2 toggler bolts(metal anchors that pop open behind the wall) and some wood stain. I also used some paint and cable ties, which I already had. I chose the 2x3 instead of a 1x2 so that I wouldnt have extra holes in the wall from the gate screws going through the board.

I cut the board into two 36" in pieces. Painted one to match my wall and stained to other to match the bannister. I used the template to put the gate hinges on the wall board. Then I drilled the holes for the bolts. I put the board to the wall where I wanted it and drilled through again to make the holes for the anchors. I took the board away to make the holes in the wall larger to fit the anchors. I put the bolts and anchors on and bolted it to the wall. I put the other board up to the banister and marked where I wanted the ties to go. Then I drilled holes through the board so that the ties could go through the board and tied it to the bannister. Then I put the gate onto the wall brackets and lined it up to install the latch brackets and that was it.

The directions absoulety suck. If you don't line it exactly when you are installing it it will not work at all. You have to make sure its off the ground just right so that you can fit on the bottom bracket. I could not use the bottom bracket so I installed our own stopper which works great. Its up now and sturdy and I do love it. Took up 2 days and alot of swearing at each other but its up and i can feel safe when my son crawls in the kitchen near the door!

We had hoped this would solve our problems with finding a gate for the top of our stairs that (1) is short enough and (2) can be installed on walls with base boards. This gate passes on the first point, but, as the directions state, cannot be installed on uneven walls. Thus, we had to return this one and keep looking.

The gate seems a nice piece, with a simple latch that may be reasonably child-proof, and construction which may be strong enough to withstand a young one trying to do it violence (the wood slats seem a tad vulnerable).

However, the description on the website does not include some critical limitations, which are in the fine print once you open the packaging and read the detailed instructions.

The gate cannot be used when one side (or both sides) to which it will attach is a metal railing. The attachment assumes holes can be drilled for the wood screws only.

The gate must be installed with no more than 3" clearance at the bottom, which means if you have 3.5" molding, you can't use it (without constructing additional blocking from scratch).

So I'm returning this gate, and deciding between another Regalo permanently attached, which we just barely made work at the bottom of the stairs (see my review, link to be put here), and one of the pressure-mounted gates (all of which create a trip hazard permanently along the bottom -- but our gate will be perpendicular to the stairs with a landing, so not as much an issue).

Excellent gate! Very sturdy and with nice metal hardware. NOTHING on this gate is made out of plastic, and I expect it to last a very long time.

This gate is nice and wide and opens the full width of the opening. When not in use. the gate lays flat against the wall and out of the way. I LOVE that it is not imposing when I do not need it. You can even lift the gate right off the hinges when it is open if you want to and put it away. Then when kids are around, just slide it back in place!

The latch system is spring loaded and tight enough that small child would not have the strength to open it, but older children should have no trouble. All in all, a very smart design!

INSTALLATION:
Installation could be a little tricky if you are not handy with tools, but I believe that most anyone would be able to install this gate. The hinges must be mounted on a level surface (as in one can not be on the baseboard while one is on the wall). So unless you have very short baseboards (like less than 3 inches), then you will probably have to mount the bottom hinge on the baseboard and insert another piece of wood behind the upper hinge that is the same thickness as the baseboard in order to make the 2 hinges level with each other. There is a template for mounting the hinges which comes in handy, but there is not one for the latch side. Once the hinges are in place, just swing the door over and mark where the latches go. (I recommend starting with the bottom latch and once the gate has been slid into it, then mark where the top one goes. I installed 3 of these gates in my house and that was much easier than doing the top one first. Happy childproofing! :)

I have the newer, non-recalled 10503/10513 model. I purchased it because it went with my decor, shrank back when it wasn't in use and was so simple to use, not to mention it was a value compared to the other gates that would fit my opening of 45 1/4 inches.

This gate needs to be refined. When extending it to close it, it has to be wiggled a bit to get it to extend properly. The gate can fully swing in either direction or have a piece of metal screwed onto the top portion near the hinge to stop it from swinging past it's locking location.

After less than 6 months, my 13 month old pushed on it (he pushed it past the spot where it locks onto the doorway) and it cracked the entire hinge section on the upper rail where the swing stop was. I called customer service right away. At first the representative was a bit short with me but when I sent the pictures, she called back within a few minutes and had a different tone. They will be sending me a new gate within 2 weeks and will send FedEx back a week later to have the other gate sent back to their engineering dept. At least they have fixed this portion of their customer service issues.

If it weren't for the fact that finding a gate so easy to use and that fit my walkway weren't an issue, I would probably not have them replace it. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS we did not use it on the stairs.

Consider carefully where you are going to use this and whether you want to risk it being used to keep a child from falling down the stairs. Had he not been stopped from pushing it after the first time, it would probably have broken clean off the hinge bracket.

A metal gate with heavy duty hinges and latch are the best you can buy; however, most people don't want to spend big money and time to buy and install one. With that said, most people choose a plastic model. The first gate I bought was plastic and was actually one of the pricer models available. Despite the price, it was a pain in the neck to install and didn't last very long. The plastic hinge components were simply too weak to endure the rigors of two small boys. PLastic just isn't a good material to build heavily used moving parts. Especially not parts that are intended to keep children safe.
I replaced it with this wood model about a year ago. It was a snap to install and the metal hardware is rock solid. The latch mechanism is easy enough for my five year old to open and close, but WAY too hard for our two year old. Thats a good thing for me. The wood is finely sanded and could be stained/painted if so inclined. And the overall design of the gate is more than adequete. There was a recall on this product at some point. I recieved info in the mail from the manufacturer. Luckily, my particular unit was not applicable.
Price was not much of a factor in my decision. I just wanted a gate that was sturdy, and used metal hinges. This gate met my criteria AND was considerably less expensive than other options. A clear winner. I bought another to close off the upsatirs steps as well.
Just do a few minutes of research to ensure you don't get a recalled model (i doubt their even still on the market), and you won't be disappointed.

This is a pretty standard easy to use gate, which takes a little bit of time and effort to fix! My wife had to hook it up, as I was out of the country when this was delivered and my 1 1/2 year old son was becoming very mobile, and getting to that age where kids think they can fly, especially from the top of the stairs! She did a very good job, even though she complained about it the entire time on the phone with me!

But my son took all of 4 weeks to yank it out of the wall, and we were left with two quarter sized holes. Finally managed to get it fixed more sturdily this weekend, and it did involve a trip to Lowe's and a few man hours, but the gate itself is pretty sturdy and works as promised and does what it promises to do! We are happy with how it works,and also the fact that it is flexible on the width part, we had a pretty wide opening to cover, but this covered it well! My son still hasn't figured out how to work the lever locking mechanism to open it, he has figured out the cabinet locks and is working on this now I persume!

So overall a good product, but if you want an easier to install model get a suction mounted model, but if it is top of the stairs, then use this gate and spend some time installing it, the benefits are worth it!