I was in Bangalore the other day, there I saw a different type of Aldrop used to lock the main gate in one of the house – don’t ask me why I noticed it!.
Normally the Aldrops (which are bolt latches with a provision for putting a padlock) will be vertical and you lift the handle and move it sideways (mostly right hand side to open) with the padlock in vertical orientation. This one that I saw was oriented differently – you lifted the latch up and down vertically with the padlock in horizontal (lying down) position. Thinking hard with my little brain I couldn’t figure out the advantage of this model – please post in the comments if you know the advantage.
While writing this post I had to find out the name of this device, I was wondering whether to call it Gate Latch or Bolt Latch or Gate Bolt. After few searches I found an item in Amazon with the name “Aldrop”, then after few more searches confirmed that this is how it is called in India.
Some gates can be opened even while locked by pushing or pulling after removing the vertical gate latches at the ground level (i don’t know how to address it). But this system blocks the gate movement even when the vertical latches are removed
I would agree with Vasudev, adding to his thought and as am in bangalore almost in many place they use this kind of latch including my previous house where i stayed. In my previous house they had a mesh along with the grill in whcih you will not be able to use your hand to lock and one main advantage is if you are getting inside the house you can close from inside or outside if you are going outside and get the door locked, you dont have to strain youself to latch it and lock it.
– Dharma
That’s interesting thought Gokul, maybe inspired from Bank lockers! :)
But I think these kind of aldrop are common and generally used with grill type gates where if normal kind of padlock or latch is put then one has to insert the hand inside grill if one is at the other side of gate. Here the latch can be opened from each side of grill. That’s what I think.
Also thanks for the name ‘Aldrop’, I didn’t knew what it was called.
Maybe it is being used in a situation to make sure that you cannot open the gate without consent of the other party involved. Situation where each party puts a lock on one side and inorder to open the gate you need the other party’s key!
Karthik, that is an interesting angle. Though I kept looking at this image for several minutes while doing this post, the double protection idea didn’t strike me. Good Catch!!!
The only thing that strikes me in this model is to ‘double protect’ the house with two padlocks instead of one! Maybe the house owner wants to be extra careful given the crime rate there!