Review: Summer Infant Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate
So I wrote this review once already, Wordpress ate it, but I am stubborn so here it is again.
Until now we have used 2 24″ pressure mounted baby gates (the standard inexpensive ones) on either end of our hallway to keep Damian off the basement steps. Not only are they very steep but they are also open with only one railing (which is out of Damian’s reach.) However Damian is tall for his age and a climber so the low gates are no longer a valid safety option.
Cue the Summer Infant - Sure & Secure Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate, which we purchased for about $60 at K-Mart. It is a 3 foot tall metal pressure gate that comes with mounting hardware. It is important to mount gates at the top of stairs as pressure gates can slide against walls, creating a big safety issue. The Summer Infant gate has a child-locked walk-thru door too so that you don’t have to be an Olympian gymnast to get down the stairs. Since this gate is both a pressure and mounted one is has a very short bar across the bottom that you have to step over, but that hasn’t been an issue for me. Just use a bit of caution.
This gate should fit any opening between 28″ and 47.5″ and has two extension panels which allow for this. However if you door frame falls between a 1/2″ measurement between each extension piece (32.5″ to 33″, 37.5″ to 38″, and 42.5″ to 43″) it won’t fit without a little modification. In other words it will become an enormous pain to install. Our home is old and the basement door frame is slightly crooked. The bottom of the door falls between 32.5″ and 33″ and therefor just barely too small to fit an extension piece. We fixed this by using an narrow inch thick strip of wood along one side of the door frame, we then used 2″ screws (rather then the 1″ screws included with the mounting hardware) to mount that side of the gate (see right photo above.) Still, if your opening falls in those ranges and you do not have a garage full of miscellaneous wood or the handyman skills, do not buy this gate.
As for what I like about the Summer Infant gate. The gate only swings one way, so that you can install it so that it does not swing above the stairs. The child-lock is well designed but still easy for an adult to operate. The gate itself is metal and seems very sturdy and durable. I don’t see myself replacing it or having any parts failing for a long time (knock on wood!) It is also 3 feet tall which is daunting for Damian but not so overwhelming that Aos cannot jump over it. (If you have a disable, older or obese cat I can see where it’s height might have an issue for the stairs.) With a permanent gate at the top of the stairs I no longer have to constantly trip over step over the two shorter gates in the hallway too, and Damian enjoys doing the house loop now as well!
Would I recommend the gate? I added another one to the baby registry for the deck stairs so I obviously like it, but if your child is average height and not a climber, it is probably not necessary. There are cheaper shorter mounted gates out there. However if you have a toddler who is a climber and tall for his or her age, as well as a set of dangerous stairs, then I would go as far to say a tall gate is not only useful, but necessary. I think the Summer Infant - Sure & Secure Extra Tall Walk-Thru Gate fits the bill fantastically well.
