What Is Door Handing?
Swing direction refers to whether the door opens toward you (left swing) or away from you (right swing).
The handle on a door is typically mounted either on the right side or the left side, of the door facing you.
The current convention in most buildings is to place doors with their handles on the push side, but some do accept doors with their handles on the pull side as well.
How do you determine the handing of a door?
For residential properties, the door should swing inwards (for example, to the left). This is to provide privacy for households.
When a door opens from a hall or small room to a larger room where people may pass through the doorway from both directions, it is best that the door is handed and swings in the same direction.
In most cases, the answer is clear from the layout of a building. For example, a door will most likely always open up so you can see the room and the back of the door is on to the wall of the room you are entering.
A right-side door with a pull handle will only be used by those entering a room. In this case, the way the door is handed and the direction in which it swings may not matter.
Which Direction Should A Door Swing?
The basic guidelines for residential homes is that most standard doors should be right-handed (to open in).
Most internal doors should be right-handed as well, such as those that open into a hallway or between rooms of the same size. An external door (the front entry) should always be left-handed.
A left-handed door (to open outwards) is popular for bathrooms and bedrooms to make it easier to exit the room without crossing over into the hallway.