Mondo Knows Facts
A deadbolt has no spring, unlike a door latch
The latch slides back by spring and bevels to close, but the bolt does not A latch has a bevelled nose and a spring, so it retracts as the door swings shut and clicks behind you. A deadbolt is square-ended, thrown only by the key or thumb turn, and cannot be slipped with a card. Most front doors combine a latch for convenience with a deadbolt for security. It sits in Mondo's everyday life collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
Where this comes from
Facts that can change over time are reviewed and updated. If something here looks wrong, Mondo would rather know than be confidently incorrect.
Go further
More facts like this
Long door cylinders can be snapped at the middleThe weak point sits where the lock body meets the handle plateA door viewer is a fisheye lensA short barrel of lenses shows a whole landing through a small holeCombination locks release when internal notches line upEach dial turns a disc with a gap, and all the gaps must meet at onceCylinder pin-tumbler door locks align split pins along a shear lineKey ridges lift spring-loaded split pins to unlock door cylindersDoor key notches act as mechanical physical passwords for locksGround key blade cut depths lift internal door pins to the exact shear lineA padlock shackle is held by a notchBall bearings or a latch drop into a cut groove to lock the hardened loop
๐งญ Everyday Lifefact 133 of 200
โ โ to keep reading, or swipe
Tags: locks, doors, security
A deadbolt has no spring, unlike a door latch: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- The latch slides back by spring and bevels to close, but the bolt does not. The figure is taken from Encyclopaedia Britannica, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a everyday life fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Everyday Life shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.
