How to Make a Basic Automatic Room Door Closer

Last Updated: December 24, 2020

Many times if you live in a hostel you might have experienced this problem that your friends enter your room and leave without closing the door and you have to walk up to the door every now and then to close and that is way too annoying. Here is a simple DIY guide to solve this problem. You can do this within a few minutes.

Steps

1
Make sure you have everything you need. See the list below.
2
Make a hole on the cap of the water bottle with the nail and the hammer.

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3
Make a knot on one end of the wire.
4
Insert the other end of the wire into the hole made in the cap. Guide the wire through the cap up to the knot and ensure that the knot doesn't pass through the hole. If it passes, then make a bigger knot.^{[1]
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5
Close the bottle with the cap.
6
Hammer a nail on the upper part of the door frame near the tower bolt.^{[2]
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7
Tie the spare end of the wire to the nail.
8
Change the angle of clamp to about 135°.
9
Fix the pulley/bobbin to the clamp with a bolt/metal wire.^{[3]
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10
Secure the clamp to the upper middle part of the shutter with nails.^{[4]
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11
Put the hanging wire and bottle setup over the pulley.
12
Open the water bottle and fill it with water.^{[5]
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13
When you fill the bottle with water it pulls the door and shuts with a bang. To avoid it cut some thermocol pieces or eraser or sponge pieces according to the door rebate where the door hits and stops.
14
Your automatic door shutter is ready!

Warnings

Ensure that the bare part of wire doesn't come in contact with any other part except the pulley. Otherwise it will lead to wear of wire and eventually the wire would give away.

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Do not use stones as weight because it may hurt someone if it falls on their feet in case of failure.

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Make sure that whatever you're doing is not in conflict with the policy of where you live

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Ensure that the pulley is rotating freely on the clamp. This adds to the efficiency of the setup.

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You may have to change the thermocol pieces as they may get pressed in long run and won't be effective then

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