Door catching on sill

The back door in my house is catching on the aluminum door sill. It's starting to pull the steel skin on the door. I'd like to fix this before it gets any worse, but I'm not sure how I should go about it.

The door opens outwards, and is fitted into a double door opening. The other half of the opening is a door sized swing out window.

I'm guessing that the door wasn't installed properly originally and the framing isn't square.

So, short of pulling the door right out and starting over, what can I do?

Reply to
Noozer
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Tighten the screws in the hinges, especially the top hinge. If that doesn't help, shim out the bottom hinge with a thin piece of aluminum.

Reply to
dadiOH

Is it the knob side scraping? You could try putting a dense cardboard shim between the bottom hinge and jamb to see if the other side moves up a tad.

-- Oren

"If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me."

Reply to
Oren

They're probably right, but get your cheek down on the floor and see exactly what is grabbing. I tried using logic to deduce what the problem was with my door and it didn't work.

Maybe you have one particular part of the door which has gotten bent down and it is doing the grabbing. You can only tell by looking.

Reply to
mm

But did you try levels over logic?

Oren

Hofstadter's Law - It [a task] always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

Reply to
Oren

My problem wasn't like his and wasn't a level issue. It didn't shut well because of a twisted aluminum strip under the door. I was able to bend it straight with a prybar of some sort under the door.

Even if his door is not level, he should still look under the door. Maybe there is some other added or bigger problem.

Reply to
mm

If the hinges are tight against the jamb, then can also be a problem with the hinge side of the jamb itself. Sometimes these are installed with nails which come loose, shims which slip down, and too short screws which don't hold well.

Then with some "weekend carpenter" jobs, the framing the hinge side jamb is attached to... is "loose" or not well attached.

If hinges are tight against the jamb, might need to pull off the molding around the door and see what is going on between the jamb and the wall framing.

The screws which come with hinges are *never* long enough in my opinion. If the top hinge is loose, take the hinge off and take to hardware store. Get really long wood screws which lay flush with the hinge. This can solve a lot of problems and make the hinge stay put. Also long screws can extend past the jamb into the framing behind and snug it up a little.

Get extra screws. If you start to screw in one of these long screws and it begins to strip, stop, unscrew it and screw in another. Might need to drill a little hole so the screw will go in all the way without stripping.

The above is usually the problem, but sometimes can be the metal threshold. The wood below the threshold can get wet and swell up or there can be problems with the floor under that.

In some cases "nothing" is square, the floor under the threshold is not level, the framing around the door is not square, etc. In these cases, it is nice to have an all wood door so you can saw a little off here or there to make things fit. But this is not always possible with a door which is part wood and metal. If you saw off any of the door, the metal will come loose! (I suppose you could screw the metal to the door, but that would not look very good.)

Reply to
Bill

I agree, there is no substitute for a good look at the thing. Chances are it is a problem on the hinge side, a hinge has gotten loose or something. On the other end of the scale it may be that the house has settled, so the door frame is no longer square. But you won't know until you look it over. We had a similar problem recently, the old aluminum storm door in back was not closing properly. Once I took a good look at it I saw that of the 5 hinges, 4 were broken! It was hanging on by the last (topmost) hinge only, plus the closer. No wonder it was closing funny. Replaced it that weekend. -- H

Reply to
Heathcliff

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