Customer Reviews

Summer Infant Sure And Secure Expansion Gate

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

this gate is great for large doorways.i have an in home day care and i love it. the gates have been up for a year. I have 9 kids in my home 6 days a week and the gates are still up and working.i mounted them in beams on the wall and the kids sometimes hang on the gates so I did have the same problem that other people said about the hinges breaking but i emailed summer infant via their website and i recieved replacement hinges FREE OF CHARGE!!!they had no problem sending them and i even offered to pay for them at first and they sent it to me for free anyway.

I have read alot of the reviews here and the problem with the gate is neither the installation nor the gate itself. The problem with the gate is the hardware. the extra wide, and therefore, extra heavy gate attaches to the wall on each side with metal screws. these screws are held in place by plastic. for the most part this is fine until an accident occurs, which is when you want to gate to work the best. unfortunately, the plastic holding the gate onto the wall broke, not the screws, and not the metal gate itself, but the plastic mounting hardware. the fix to this is simple, get rid of the plastic and use brass or stainless steel. at the very least, make the replacement parts available on-line through the company's web site. If I am paying 60, 70 or more dollars for a gate, I would pay an extra five for better hardware. fortunately, when the gate came down, with my wife, she suffered a bruised ego and some black and blue marks, but it could have been much more serious.

The engineer/designer for this product should be given a demotion at their next performance review. What a great way to ensure your company gets a reputation for putting out crappy products. After I installed the gate, I was counting the days the plastic components would start breaking. Sure enough, it took 11 days of light use and the plastic hinge cracked and flew in all directions. Employing plastic hinges for heavy metal gate runs contrary to most manufacturers' intuition, but not this one. Until they start using better materials, my strict recommendation on this product would be to take a pass. If this on-line rating system allowed a score less than "1", I would give it.

The gate worked well for about 3 months. Soon after we installed the gate, we noticed that the gate began to sag due to its own weight. We were unable to close the gate by swinging it shut. Instead, we had to lift it into the lock mechanism because it was sagging. Even after some adjustments, the gate would continue to sag. Finally, the weight of the metal gate finally got to the plastic hardware and the plastic hardware snapped off the wall (with metal screws still in the wall). Maybe it would have lasted longer if we did not put it in a high traffic area? Now we are looking for a shorter swinging gate with add on panels that remain stationary, with metal (rather than plastic) hardware. Hopefully, the weight of the shorter gate will keep it standing.

I attached a 2" x 4" with long wood screws on my hinge side because my wall was of disparate material and size. No problem. Don't try and use drywall (wallboard) to drill into as that might be the cause of several frustrations mentioned above-you're dealing with a hinge that may get frequent use. Even if I had used the third section, I believe it would have been fine because I built a solid hinge side. Out of the box, the templates were off, which I made sure I proved to my wife and baby (after drilling from the template), who were viewing from the nearby steps. I cut from the dotted lines but I noticed the bottoms didn't match up evenly from the cutout. That may have been a printing error. I just re-drilled and used wood putty for visible holes. One thing they didn't mention is that if you're using only 2 of the panels (a & b-guess I had a C in mine), you should realign your template B about a 1/2" because it will be offset from your panel B (won't go straight across). Don't know if that would have impacted the operation or not. Other than that, it worked out nice and secure-solid as a rock. Achieved wife approval on this one. Just take some time and pre-read the directions for possible adjustments for your situation.

I have to admit, I was scared to take these gates out of the boxes after I first bought them and read the terrible reviews. But after looking over all gates available for sale, I couldn't find anything else that covers a 72" opening (one of our two openings is 71 1/2"). We installed these anyway and are extremely happy. My husband has a construction background, so maybe installation was easier for him than the average person, but he didn't have any complaints. We've had the gates up for about a month now, and I love them. They look really classy (not clunky and plasticy) and are very secure. Of course, my baby is only a year old, and he isn't throwing his weight against them to tear them down....so maybe I'll experience some of the problems others mentioned about the gates coming out of the wall at a future date. But for now, I couldn't be happier with them. They are easy to open, open the entire way so you can get large items through the opening, and are so secure. No complaints from us!

I was looking for a gate to fit a space 62" wide. I did not want to spend more than $100.00 and found this one for $59.99. It comes with the extra panels instead of having to purchase extensions. Installation was difficult though. It took my husband over an hour to install it. He had to use light duty anchors with flat heads to install it. Great gate for the money, but I gave it a four for it's difficult installation.

Pros: Sturdy gate, easy to use, inexpensive for what you get.
Cons: Bolts stick out of end as latch mechanism. Wide swing.

We originally received a Kidco Safeway Gate G20, which rated very well both at Amazon and with Consumer Reports. However, for our application it looked liked we would need to purchase the extension kit, giving us a total price of close to $90 for the G20 and an extension. Another option for us would have been the Configuregate or the Elongate, both over $100.

When I went to pickup the extension I grabbed this gate instead because it was so much cheaper and it came with 2 extensions. Since I had the Kidco G20 gate I compared the 2 fairly thoroughly since this one go such lousy reviews. The gate and hinge materials are very similar, in fact the gate material itself is virtually identical. The hinges look pretty similar.

Installation was a little tricky due to our baseboard, but all that was needed was a little spacer block (scrap baseboard) to make it fit right. Other than that installation was very smooth.

The gate is very sturdy (I installed with 2 inch screws into the stud). This past weekend we had 4 2-year olds, 2 1-year olds, and a 3 year old running around and it was fine.

Overall, I highly recommend this gate to anyone who was considering the Kidco G20 with extension, or balked at the price for the Kidco Configuregate or Elongate

However, I would say that the Kidco Configuregate and Elongate or nicer since they don't have the cons I expressed above, but they both cost about twice as much.

We put this gate at the bottom of our stairs. I'm very happy with it. I can open the gate using one hand, but doubt any child under 3 could open it on their own. We installed it 37" wide using two of the three panels. We used drywall anchors on the side which supports the gate when it is open. The other side is screwed into a piece of wood we attached to our banister. Plan to spend at least 30-60 minutes installing this gate, fit it tight, and it will work great. I have not had any problems with the screws loosening, as mentioned below - ours stays tight.

This gate could have been a great product. But for some reason, probably money the manufacturer made a nice STEEL gate with PLASTIC hinges. We counted the days it took for the hinges to break. Well 2 1/2 weeks later it broke and ruined my wall with holes and a big mark from the fallen gate. The gate then fell on my son. This is a nice-looking gate with shoddy hinges. If only the hinges were metal. This product was not cheap and the manufacturer should have went the extra mile and used the right materials. Instead we have chairs holding the gate up as we wait for new hinges.