I just installed a new pre-hung door in the upstairs bedroom I am remodeling. I've got it in nice and level and square and it works great.
My trouble is that at the bottom of the door the door jamb will be just even with the drywall but the top of the jamb is even with the wall frame. The only thing I can figure is that I need to take a long piece of 1/2 x 1/2 and cut it into a long wedge and install it on the door jamb to make the whole thing about even with the drywall.
Is this the way it is done or is there something easier?
Obviously your wall is not level. In this situation I would try and compromise by "splitting the difference" by making your door and the top frame almost even and at the same time push in the bottom of the door jamb. Of course that would mean you door would be off level, or you could shim up the jamb like you suggested.
The wall is part of the old house built in 1910 and now the inside wall of an upstairs bedroom that was added on around 1948. Looks like the wall is about a half inch farther into the room at the top of the door than at the bottom.
I've only installed the door with a few nails and left them so I can easily pull them back out if I need too. And I haven't installed the drywall on that wall yet so, if it is what I should do, I could remove the door and plumb the wall before I continue with the drywalling.
Here's what the instructions for my ThermaTry entry door say.
I'm guessing that your opening would fail this test.
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Check to be sure the framing walls around the opening are in the same plane. Do this by performing a =93string test=94 for plumb.
String Test for Plumb: Attach a string diagonally across the opening from the outside, as shown. The string(s) should gently touch in the center, if not the opening is =93out of plumb=94 by twice that distance and needs to be corrected. Flip the string over itself to check both planes. Fix any problems now.
An =93out of plumb=94 condition is one of the most common reasons door units leak air and water.
I don't know your proper answer. I have seem "shave and shim" of wall studs. using a long level (checking plane), power wood planer, the studs were shaved down a bit - low spots where shimmed with a shim (dense cardboard) found at various stores. The are thin, 2 inch wide and 4 foot long. Stapled on the stud.
Shave and shim here is used on tall walls to take out imperfection and the wall will not show them (as much).
(BTW, posting from Goggle will prevent many posters from seeing your posts as they filter them out, due to spam.)
Agreed, this is the way to do it, although your wall may need something much thicker than cardboard. If you have scraps of various thicknesses of plywood you could use them to build up a level surface and if you have a table saw you could cut some various thicknesses of shims or even a long tapered shim -- I have just done a combination of both methods on a wall that was not perfectly plumb.
I remodeled a room that originally had plaster. When I checked the studs they were over 1/4" out of flat in both directions. I got sheets of 1/4" and
1/8" hardboard from Home Depot. I ripped them into 1 1/2" strips and then went to work flattening the walls. I never got them perfect, but I was able to get them flat enough to hand drywall without noticable warping.
I don't filter any messages, although Earthlink might (they do a great job of filtering spam email)....I just don't get much spam at all, and have noticed almost none on the ng (other than our stucco friend).
As OP said, this is a plumb-bob string test classic. Relax, this one is easy.
Get a nice long bit of string or yarn. Longer than the door. Tie a weight to the bottom (a couple of bolts, or some metal washers, anything that won't be to heavy for you to tape the string up and hold, yet heavy enough to hold the string straight. I prefer a bright contrasting yarn as it's easier to see against the door jam etc.
Next you want some duct tape or masking tape and a piece of chalk. If your wife sews, she'll have 'pattern markers' for cloth. Perfect for the job.
Suspend string from at least 3 spots along the top of the jam and mark the floor where they hit. Draw a line across that using a yardstick. If the door frame is set partway into the room at the top, it will be real obvious as the line will fall inside the room. It may even be unevenly inside the room. This can cause issues with opening the door (angled a bit, may drag floor, normal fix is trim bottom of door carefully with a hand lathe). As to the side to side issue, the string hung at the very corners will show this. If you have to inch it in at the top to get it to hit dead on at the bottom, shim the top til plumb.
Grin, one of those jobs actually easier with a bit of string than a level!
"Plumb" means true vertical....the door frame sounds as if it is out of plumb, front to back (or is it the wall itself?). Parallel means two lines are equidistant from each other and can run any direction. The two sides of the frame can easily be parallel but "out of plumb".
I hadn't seen or heard about the string test for plumb 9for doors), until Derby mentioned it some threads back. That test was peculiar to his door install instructions. I learned something from the simple test in the pdf file he posted.
The wall could be parallel to the tree outside, but not plumb.
Notice a level doesn't have a parallel bubble in it ...
I did the string test on the door and the top of the door does lean slightly in but correcting that only makes the problem of trimming around the door worse.
I did the string test on the wall on each side of the door where the trim would attach and the weight on the end of the string hits the floor about an inch away from the wall on both sides. And it is about the same all the way to the corners of the room.
Looks like I need to plum that wall and then make adjustments to the door installation.
The wall is part of the old house built in 1910 and now the inside wall of an upstairs bedroom that was added on around 1948. Looks like the wall is about a half inch farther into the room at the top of the door than at the bottom.
I've only installed the door with a few nails and left them so I can easily pull them back out if I need too. And I haven't installed the drywall on that wall yet so, if it is what I should do, I could remove the door and plumb the wall before I continue with the drywalling.
David
Since it sounds like your wall is finished and it is too late to shim the wall to make it plumb, your best bet is to scribe the edge of door jam where it exends past the finished wall, then remove teh door, disassemble the entire frame and cut it along your scribe lines. reassemble the frame and reinstall. The 'wedges' cut from one side should be what you need to fill the gaps on the oposite side.
Thanks Mark. But I haven't finished that wall yet. I am now looking at probably shimming the wall to make it plumb. I need to figure out the best way to do that.
Got it. Someone tried to even up the door frame already on the uneven wall. Both lean a bit, wall more so.
String and weight fall about 1 inch inward inside the room, a bit less so at the door frame. If so, shim at bottom of doorframe slanting thinner upwards.
Actually, I'd stick to the door frame. Shim it out at the bottom. The door will be a bit 'into the room' but you can use pretty molding to virtually cover it. You can even do a partial job then use a hand lathe to sliver at an angle, off bits of the bottom of the door so it sweeps in without hitting the floor (your angled wall will make that happen unless you can flip the door to swing outwards to what I presume is a hall in which case it will swing closed automatically forever).
You want to make the door a bit like / at the bottom with a hand lathe. You know, the thing with a blade that is long and flat and curles off small slivers of wood? Angle the bottom off so it swings open without hitting the floor.
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