Wonky Door Frame

[The Medway Handyman]

Hi All

Came across an 30" interior door frame today that is well p*ss*d. Both sides are more or less vertical, and the threshold is more or less level. The top of the frame is well out of kilter.

If I offer the door up into the frame with an even gap all round, the hinge side just clears the top. The lock side of the frame is a good 3/4" higher. A 1/4" gap is visible from outside because the rebate is smaller than that.

If it was a flush door I could cut it at an angle to fit, but I'd need to take off so much it would leave an unacceptable gap at the bottom. Also, being a 6 panel door I'm concerned that the taper would show when the door was open. The top part of the framed door would be 3" wide at one side and

2 1/4" at the other.

The only thing I can think of is to leave the door square and cut some tapered fillets to square off the inside of the frame at the top.

What's the accepted wisdom about fitting doors in out of square frames?

[Guy King]

The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:

Prise off the architrave, fix the hole so it's square, put the architrave back. Adjust door to suit.

[The Medway Handyman]

[The Medway Handyman]

Its not the architrave, its the door frame itself. Are you suggesting tapered fillets then?

[Guy King]

The message from "The Medway Handyman" contains these words:

I suppose so. What I meant was if you put fillets in the architrave will look wonky.

[JustMe]

My house was full of door frames like this. No idea why - I reckon you'd have to work hard to get them so wonky, but a previous builder managed it. These were so far out and so badly fitted that the builder decided to remove the whole frames and start again. He discovered that the brickwork itself seemed to be rather cockeyed and, given that I wasn't keen on ripping brickwork out, he used a few blocks of wood wedged between the new frame and the brickwork, all screwed in to place to get it straight. The gaps between frame and brickwork, where not wedged with wood blocks, were filled with expanding foam and it was all covered over with the new architrave.

I wasn't that fussed about refitting the doors as these were being replaced with new ones at the same time (previous builder had cut the doors with ridiculous diagonals so they'd fit the wonky frames!

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

If you put tapered fillets in this would mean you would have to alter the architrave as well.

If you havn't given a price yet I'd suggest to the customer about taking out the frame and reseating it squarely. Its a bugger when frames are out,had a few of me own like that but what I done rather than take the frame out was... The high side, i found out where the nails went into the wedges,pulled the nails out,took 1&1/4 inches off the bottom and pushed it down with the architrave off both sides.

[Stuart Noble]

Sounds like you need to forget about the top gap when hanging the door, and adjust the the top section of the door stop afterwards. It probably sits on the side pieces but you can always saw through it to allow it to come away. Pin it back, prise it down to the right position, and fill. It might even end up square.

[Weatherlawyer]

Old buildings settle. It's not unusual to find that sort of a gap in doors.

Measure exactly how far out of level the head is and take the leg of the highest side of the frame off and cut that much from the bottom. Refit and try messing with the architraves or fit new.

Check out the other doors while you are there and give a price for the lot.