door hanging help needed

[Mike Sollins]

I'm building a new partition wall and am having trouble with the (pre-hung) door. I got the jamb installed OK and the door worked perfectly. I then removed the door and took it out to the garage to paint it. Meanwhile I worked on installing the casing around the jamb. Evidently, in the process of nailing the casing to the jamb I deformed the jamb. I only discovered this when door, casing, wall etc were all nicely painted and I went to replace the door on its hinges. The frist thing I noticed was that it was a little harder than I had remembered aligning all 3 hinges and putting the pins in. Then to my horror as I swung the door back and forth I heard awful groaning noises from the woodwork. I found that if I unscrew the center hinge from the jamb (leaving it attached to the door) that hinge moves 3/16 of an inch relative to the screw holes in the jamb as I swing the door through 180 degrees. No wonder I heard groaning noises with all 3 hinges in place! Using a 4' straightedge I can't really see any deformation of the jamb. The door does seem very slightly warped (don't know if this is new since painting it). I hope I've described the problem well enough for someone to offer some advice. (I know: next time I'll leave the door in place when installing the casing!)

Thanks, Mike Sollins

p.s. The door still lines up just fine in the jamb when closed.

Oh, another thing: I had thought the short screws holding the hinges in the jamb were meant to be replaced with longer screws that would go all the way into the framing of the rough opening. But this prehung door is built in such a way that those screws, if lengthened, would go into the edge of the sheetrock, not the framing. Is this typical of prehung doors?

[RicodJour]

If it lines up fine when closed, and the reveal is uniform around the perimeter of the door, that slightly warped door is probably the problem. If you painted the door laying flat, painting one side and then waiting until it dried before painting the other, that could have caused it to warp some. It's also possible that the door was slightly warped to begin with and you just didn't notice it.

Over time the door should find an equilbibrium and quiet down some.

If in fact you did pull the jamb out of alignment when installing the casing, you might have to pull it and reinstall. Not a huge deal. Run a razor knife along the casing/jamb edge and use care prying the pieces off.

Yes. No need to swap out the screws.

R

[George E. Cawthon]

The last part first. No you do not replace the short screws/

If what you say is an accurate representation, you need to remove the trim, hang the door, and renail the trim.

I presume you mean the middle hinge moves in and out 3/16 of an inch. That means you really bent the jamb. If I were you, the first thing I would try would be to slightly loosen th hinge plates on the door, hang the door, slightly loosen the hinge plate on the jambs, and slowly tighten the various screws as you swing the door. You may find that you do not need to do anything else.

[Dean Swinger]

When removing the door perhaps you tweaked 1 of the hinges by not removing the door evenly sounds like it may be a heavy door if it had

3 h>Mike Soll>> I'm building a new partition wall and am having trouble with the