Doors that Sag, Drag or Bind

 

Time and age cause doors to bind and stick. As your house settles, doors sag in their frames; in addition, repeated painting and dirt create buildup. Or, a door may have been misaligned from the start.

Often, to fix a door that binds, all that is required is a simple adjustment to the hinges or sanding or planing the door edges.

Many doors bind against the upper corner of the jamb or drag across the carpet. Close the door, and check how it fits in the jamb. Look for tight spots, and make sure the top edge of the door is level. If it appears to be more than 1/4 inch out of level, the cause is probably settling or sagging.

You can usually solve this by replacing the center screw of the upper hinge with a longer, 2 1/2-inch screw, angled slightly toward the jamb's center. First, clean off any dirt, and repair or replace any bent hinges.
 

Drive the screw in snugly, and tighten the other screws that secure the hinge. If they can't be tightened, repair the screw holes by packing them with short pieces of a glue-coated dowel. Then replace the screws.

Another culprit in a door that binds is humidity, which can cause a door to swell and stick, or a buildup of dirt and paint on the door edges or jambs. Identify the spots that bind by inserting a thin strip of cardboard or wood between the door and jambs to see where the door pinches. Then mark the areas where the door is binding with a pencil.
 

Remove the door, and sand or plane off the high spots. If you use a jack plane, cut in line with the wood grain to avoid gouging the wood. Plane the top or bottom rail or hinge stile if that's where the door binds; avoid planing the lock stile so that you don't have to reposition the lockset.

Last but not least, don't take too much off—remember, the door will shrink back up when the air is drier. Finish by coating the door edges and jambs with paraffin.
 

HINGE PROBLEMS?

 

Squeaky hinges are easy to fix. First, try applying some 3 in 1 oil or some other penetrating oil, near the hinge pin..

If that doesn't work, pull out the hinge pin from the squeaky hinge, and lightly scrub the pin, barrel, and hinge leaves with steel wool. Coat them with a thin layer of silicone spray or a light penetrating oil, and replace the pin.

Keep a door working well by periodically lubricating the hinges with silicone spray or a light penetrating oil. But don't spray this type of lubricant into a lockset—it will gum it up.

 

Repairing Door Hinge Screw Holes

 

1. If hinge screw holes are stripped, remove the screws and hinge leaf from the jamb. Coat small wood dowels or wooden matchsticks with glue, and pack them in the holes. Wipe off the excess glue, and trim the resulting plug flush.
 

2. After allowing the glue to dry, hold the hinge leaf in position, and drill new pilot holes for screws. Then drive in the screws. For extra strength, you can substitute longer screws for the original ones.

Hinged Door Repairs

 

Wooden hinged doors can warp, particularly in humid climates or in areas where the air's moisture content varies. Warped doors stick, making them difficult to open and close. In addition to encountering moisture-related problems, doors can suffer from continual use, which may eventually cause them to loosen, bind, or stick.

When these problems occur, the latch or lock may not catch as well as it should. Correcting these problems is usually fairly simple, but a door that's badly warped will need to be replaced.

A door that binds or sticks may be sagging on its hinges or it simply may have a buildup of paint or dirt that keeps it from opening or closing easily. Tightening hinge screws or shaving off any paint buildup usually solves the problem. Seal wood doors to prevent moisture from compromising the integrity of the wood.

If a loose door doesn't latch properly, tighten its hinge screws. Then try adjusting the strike plate by loosening its screws and shifting it slightly.
 

DOOR RATTLING OR DAMAGED?
 

When an interior door rattles, this means the door stop and/or the strike plate are not tight enough. If the strike plate has a flange in the center that can be bent slightly to tighten the fit, remove the plate and use a pair of pliers to bend the flange.

Otherwise, you may have to adjust the position of the door stop on the latch-side jamb.

To do this, first use a utility knife to cut the paint seal between the moulding and the jamb. Then place a wooden block against the door stop, and hammer the block gently toward the door to provide a tighter fit.

The best way to stop an exterior door from rattling in the wind is to install resilient weather stripping around its perimeter, which also will help insulate your house. Look for the vinyl bulb type and follow package instructions.

 

DAMAGED DOORS....?

 

There are many methods for repairing or restoring woodwork, and they work just as well for all-wood doors.

 You can sand out minor scratches, fill gouges with wood putty, replace rotted or broken sections with epoxy filler or by gluing in a new piece, and so on.

If a panel in a Colonial-style door is cracked or split, you may be able to re-glue it without removing it from the rest of the door.

If you have to remove a panel or replace it completely, try prying off the mouldings that surround it and hold it in place. On some panel doors the mouldings are routed in and can't be removed.

In this case, one option is to cut away these integral mouldings carefully. After you've fixed the panel, buy new mouldings to match the rest of the door's trim.
 

Fixing Loose, Warped, or Binding Doors

Age and continual use can cause even a well-fitted door to loosen, bind, or warp. Binding or loose doors are relatively easy to fix. On the other hand, a door that is badly warped will have to be replaced.

You do not necessarily have to remove a door to fix it. If you are working on just one hinge at a time or on the top of a door, you only need to open the door partially and drive a wedge underneath the latch side to hold the door steady.

But for other repairs, including sanding or planing the side or bottom of a door, you will need to remove the door from its hinges to do the repairs.

 

Tightening a loose door
If a door is too small for its frame, an easy though somewhat obtrusive solution is to install weather stripping on the latch side of the jamb. A more attractive fix is to shim out one or more of the door's hinges. To do this, you'll need to remove the hinge pins and the door.

Unscrew the hinge leaf from the jamb. Cut a piece of thin sheet brass or dense, hard-surface cardboard to fit beneath it. Double up shims if you need more thickness. Then screw the leaf back in place.

Often, simply tightening loose hinges gets a sagging door back in alignment. You can try tightening loose hinge screws or replacing them with longer ones. If the holes are so badly stripped that the screws won't hold, repair the screw holes as discussed below.

If a loose door isn't latching properly, click here to learn how to align the latch.

Adjusting a warped door

To fix a slightly warped door, try adjusting the stop, partially shimming the hinges, or adding another hinge. Where there is a slight bow on the hinge side, centering a third hinge between the top and bottom ones often pulls the door back into alignment. If the bow is near the lock side and the door latches only when slammed, first try adjusting the latch.

Then try repositioning the stop, as you would for a window. If necessary, adjust the strike plate. If the top or bottom of the door does not meet the stop on the lock side, try repositioning the stop and the strike plate.

You may also have to shim the hinges to change the angle of the door's swing. You can move a door closer to the lock side of the jamb by inserting shims under the hinge leaves. Depending on the direction of the warp, place a half shim under each hinge leaf either on the side of the leaf that is closest to the pin or on the opposite side. Usually, the other hinge is shimmed in the opposite way.

Binding doors

If a door binds or rubs against the jamb, identify the spots where it binds by sliding a thin strip of cardboard or wood between the door and the jambs. Look for a buildup of paint, which usually is the culprit. Hold a sharp wood chisel flat against the surface, and slice off the excess. Then smooth the surface with fine-grit sandpaper. Coat the door edges and the jambs with paraffin.

If you must remove excess wood from the door edges, before planing first try sanding the areas with coarse, followed by finer, sandpaper. When sanding or planing the stiles, concentrate on the hinge side; not only is the lock side usually beveled to allow for a tight fit, but planing it can also intrude on the way the lock set fits.
 

Planing a door
1) Using a pencil, mark the area to be planed on both faces of the door. Typically, you should be able to slide a dime between the door and the jamb along both sides and the top.  

2) Set the door on edge, and, using a plane with a sharp blade set to make a very shallow cut, shave off small portions. Work in line with the grain, holding the plane at a slight angle and flat against the surface. At the door's top and bottom, plane from the corner toward the middle to avoid splitting the ends of the stiles.