Doors and Out of Plumb Walls

[Mike O.]

It's pretty rare that the hinges would give up in a year.

What's it doing? Can you see poor clearances anywhere now? Does it seem like one side is dropping? Could the door be warping?

Mike O.

[evodawg]

Never heard of that, think that might be going a little to far. Just install it with enough of a gap that if it does swell you're covered. I live in a dry area and when it rains it does swell. I leave about 1/8th of an inch.

[-MIKE-]

Those cheap pre-hungs have such thin casements that they can bow out if not shimmed and nailed in enough.

Around here, it's very common to see them installed with only the pre-attached trim nailed through the drywall and *no* nails or shims through the casement. Not kidding.

[evodawg]

Ive seen that in your lower cost tract house, (500,000 Moderate home price here a few years back). No shims and the casement or trim holding the door in place. I couldn't believe it when I first saw it. I thought what a neat trick, to bad it doesn't work.

[Puckdropper]

Mike O. wrote in news: [e-mail]:

The door misses the catch consistently, and has to be lifted via the knob to engage it.

I just checked with the level. The frame is straight, but installed skewed. Over 4', the frame is out of plumb by 1/4". (I bet this is where the problem is.)

The hinges aren't that great either, the top hinge allows quite a bit of play between the two halves. Lifting the door can align or mis-align the hinges by 1/32-1/16". Several of the frame-side screws have stripped out, and a few of them were working their way out. The door-side screws were all tight, though.

Puckdropper

[Tim Douglass]

The exterior doors on the manufactured home I live in were pretty much installed that way. They had a dozen or so 3" staples through the brick-mould and that was about it. Getting those doors to function in anything like a "normal" manner took a bit of doing.

-- Tim Douglass

started out with nothing and after years of hard work have finally managed to double it!

[-MIKE-]

I'm sure you know this, but someone lurking may not.

It's a good idea to replace one hinge screw (casement side) per hinge, with a long (3+") screw, that goes all the way through the casement, shims, jack stud and king stud. For heavy doors, like thick solid wood panel doors, replacing two per hinge can do wonders for keeping everything straight and operating properly.

[-MIKE-]

I think I've seen that, too. I talked to a rep from a door company, who was at Lowes for whatever reason. I was asking him about those "clam-shell" doors with the pre-installed trim. He said those staples were never intended to be the final attachment fasteners. He said they're just in there to hold the trim on through shipping and to help square the door during installation. They always recommend finish nails installed on site.

[Mike O.]

I've seen the hinge screws come loose on jambs before, especially on particle board jambs. Probably stripped when they were manufactured. You can try to glue some toothpicks or something in the holes and try the screws again. If they still strip you can use some long utility screws and go into the trimmer stud. Either method might pull the door back toward the hinge side jamb enough to let it latch.

If not, and the clearances on the sides look okay but you see more gap at the header on the lock side than the hinge side you can take the trim off the hinge side (and maybe the two header pieces) and pry from the bottom to lift the hinge side jamb. This won't fix the out of plumb situation but it will let you put the trim back where it was (except for height) so you don't have to paint the walls again.

We had a pretty similar situation on a new house. We had trimmed the house and after about 6 months the builder called to tell us that there was a door that would no longer latch. I went over to fix it. The door was at the head of the stairs and sure enough the hinge side had dropped and the door wouldn't latch. I got out my levels and the door was still plumb but the header was no longer level. I re-set the door and told the builder that I thought that the floor was sagging on one side of the stairs. He didn't really think so but we got it fixed and all was okay. Within the next year we had repaired the same door in three different houses all of which were the same plan. On the last two you could see the cracks in the sheet rock running from the corner of the opening towards the ceiling. He finally believed me but it took him a while. After that they extended the stair wall in the basement to pick up one more floor truss. We never had to fix another one.

Mike O.

[Tim Douglass]

Make sure you put shims behind the casement right where the screws go before driving those long screws. Most cheap door installations don't have any shims behind the hinges, so that whole side flexes and if you put a long screw in you will make things much worse.

DAMHIKT

Tim Douglass

laptop knows me too well - it just announced "your battery is low!"

[-MIKE-]

Yes, I should have typed shims in all caps. :-)

[Puckdropper]

Mike O. wrote in news: [e-mail]:

Thanks for all the advice Mike. When I get a chance, I'll pull the trim off the hinge side and get a good idea what's there. Then I'll take your advice about replacing one screw per hinge with a 3" screw that goes through a shim.

The catch only misses by a small amount, so as long as the door is stable moving the catch plate would probably permanently solve the problem.

Puckdropper

[Puckdropper]

-MIKE- wrote in news:gu4cci$akn$ [e-mail]:

That sounds like a good suggestion, -MIKE-. I plan on taking it.

Puckdropper

[-MIKE-]

Like another guy reiterated, make sure you shim it or it will keep pulling.

That actually can come in handy. When I run across a door sticking in its jam, first thing I try is putting a long screw in the opposite hinge to see if it will pull back in line. Works a lot of the time.

Usually, if it were done to start, it would never had sagged.

[1D10T]

I never use nails to install/repair a door. Screws for me!

[1D10T]

How dare you spell "politician" with a capital "P"!

[evodawg]

You're right Lowercase applies

[-MIKE-]

Just curious. What do you do to the screw heads?

[1D10T]

Probably what you do to the nail heads. It's no more of an issue with screws than with nails. As with nails, I do try to place them where they'll be under the stop molding, which also leaves nail heads to be dealt with.

[-MIKE-]

Ever try those trim screws with the little heads? I've used them on other things and they're nice, but easy to pull through.