Door adjustment and alignment

A door that drags in August and swings free in February is not really a door problem. It is a house problem showing up at the one place you touch forty times a day. Door adjustment is the work of reading what the gap is telling you, then correcting it at the hinge, the jamb or the slab so the door closes with one hand and stays where you leave it. It sits inside our door repair service and it is one of the shortest visits we run.

What a sticking door is telling you

Stand back and look at the gap around the closed door. An even line the width of a nickel means the door is hung right and something else has moved. A wedge that narrows at the top on the latch side usually means a hinge has pulled or the header above has taken load. A door rubbing at the bottom of the strike edge points at a sagging jamb. We read the gap first because it decides whether the fix takes twenty minutes or half a day.

The seasonal swing that fools most homeowners

Southeast Michigan runs humid summers and dry, heated winters, and a solid wood door can move a sixteenth of an inch across that swing. Plane a door flat in July and it can rattle loose by January. So the first question on a summer call is whether the door closed fine last winter. If it did, the honest answer is often to adjust the strike and hinges rather than remove wood that you will want back in five months.

Planing, shimming and rehanging in plain terms

Shimming means slipping a thin card behind a hinge leaf to swing the door a hair away from the rub. Rehanging means pulling the door, correcting the hinge mortises and setting it back plumb. Planing means taking wood off the edge, which is permanent and is why we try the other two first. Most visits end at shimming. Planing is reserved for doors that have swelled past what hardware can absorb.

When the jamb is the problem and the door is fine

A door hung in a jamb that has dropped will never close cleanly no matter how much is taken off the slab. Jamb repair covers a split hinge-side jamb, a strike side that has pulled from the stud, and a head jamb that has bowed. We shim the jamb back to plumb, fasten into framing rather than into trim, and reset the casing so the repair does not read as a patch. That work often travels with our trim carpentry crew.

What gets checked before anything is cut

Every door call starts with the same short list, because cutting first is how a door ends up with a gap you can see daylight through.

• Hinge screws, and whether they reach framing or stop in the jamb
• The floor under the swing, for a hump, a new rug or settled subfloor
• Strike plate depth, alignment and the condition of the latch bore
• The head jamb for bow, and the hinge jamb for split
• Whether the door is solid, hollow core or a slab someone shortened once already

Doors that swing open or drift closed by themselves

A door that will not stay put is out of plumb, and the cure is almost never at the latch. Bending a hinge pin very slightly, or shimming the lower hinge, tips the door back so gravity stops deciding where it rests. Homeowners call this the haunted door. It is one of the cheapest things on our list to fix and one of the most satisfying to hand back.

The hardware side of a door that will not latch

When the latch misses the strike by a hair, moving the strike plate is quicker and steadier than moving the door. We file or reset the plate, deepen the mortise if the latch is binding and check that the knob or lever is bored square. If the whole house is due for matching hardware, that is our lock and deadbolt installation work instead, keyed alike across your exterior doors.

What this work costs you in time

A single sticking door is usually a same-visit fix. A house with six doors that all bind after a wet spring is a half day, and it is cheaper per door than calling us back three times. Homeowners often fold door adjustment into a broader visit such as our annual home check or a package from the home repair packages list, which is the least expensive way to buy an hour of a carpenter.

Houses in this region and their settling habits

Century homes around Ann Arbor were built with plaster, thick jambs and doors that were fitted to their openings by hand, so no two are square and replacements rarely drop in. Postwar ranches in the townships settle at the corners and throw the doors nearest the load. Newer builds move least, but their hollow-core slabs strip screws easily. The approach changes with the house, and so does what we recommend.

Where adjustment stops and replacement starts

Adjustment has limits. A slab delaminating at the bottom, a hollow core punched through, or a jamb rotted where an exterior door meets the threshold is past what planing solves. At that point you are choosing between an interior door installation and, for an exterior opening, a full door replacement. We say so on the visit rather than selling you an adjustment that will fail by spring.

Paint, lead and doors built before the late seventies

Planing or sanding a painted door in a house built before nineteen seventy-eight can disturb lead-based paint. Federal rules require a certified firm to follow specific work practices on that work. We tell you when a door falls into that category and what it changes about the visit, rather than raising dust and sorting it out afterward. If your house is older, mention it when you call and we will plan the day around it.

Signs a door has moved past adjusting

• Daylight visible along the hinge side with the door closed and latched
• A latch that only catches when you lean a shoulder into the slab
• Soft or spongy wood at the bottom rail of an exterior door
• A hinge screw that spins forever and never draws tight
• A slab already cut short once, leaving the bottom rail thin

Any one of those on its own is still a repair. Two or three together usually means the opening is worth rebuilding rather than coaxing. We would rather tell you that on the first visit than take payment for an adjustment twice. Homeowners preparing to sell often ask us to sort every door in the house at once, which is the work behind our pre-listing home repairs package.

Book a door adjustment with our crew

Doors are the smallest repair we sell and the one homeowners notice every day. If several of yours are sticking, dragging or drifting, we can usually clear them in one visit. View our Portfolio to see the standard our carpenters hold, then contact us now for a free quote. The same crew handles weatherstripping installation and draft sealing if your doors are leaking heat as well as binding.