Doors – What causes standard door hinges to close up to a certain amount automatically

doors

Hopefully a relatively easy one to answer. 🙂 My bathroom door has a standard hinge attached, that requires the door to physically be closed – this matches the setup of the other doors in my house. However, when fully opened, my bathroom door closes up to a certain point and then stops – this amount is consistent each time. What causes this to happen for certain doors, and not others? This is the only door to do this in this house, but I've seen others that have done something similar previously.

Best Answer

The two hinges are not exactly one above each other, in 3D. One of them is slightly left, right, front or back, relative to the other.

As such, the line going through both hinges forms a vector in space. If this vector is not straight up, when the door rotates around it, the door will go higher or lower.

Gravity is pulling the door down. As such, it will try to go to the position where the door is lower.

(following comments, I assumed passive hinges. Do you have a hinge that is supposed to close automatically?)