# Doors that can't be locked unless you slam them **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 9, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497 "2021-03-09T02:58:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![blabbermeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9a140/32.png) [@blabbermeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blabbermeister)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/1 "2021-03-09T02:58:46Z")
I’ve known several doors like this in my life, including my current apartment door and the house I grew up in. You close the door but you can’t turn the key unless you open the door and close it again louder. The door is already completely shut, so pulling the doorknob while trying to turn the key doesn’t do anything. What’s the internal mechanism here? Is a certain amount of vibration needed to make something move inside the lock? Is it intentional or a defect? Hard to believe a defective lock could be so stable; my apartment door has been like this for 11 years and my old house was like this for 22 years until I moved out. The hardest thing is trying to close it without waking someone up: You close it _almost_ loudly enough to lock it, but not quite, so you have to do it again, thereby making _two_ slamming noises, when a single slightly louder slam would have been enough. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/2 "2021-03-09T03:12:04Z")
If the lock mechanism on the door works clean and smooth when it’s open, then the bolt is misaligned. An old locksmith’s trick is to put some wite-out on the end of the bolt, close the door, then try to turn the key. Open the door and there should be a wite-out mark on the strikeplate that will show you how much and which direction it’s off. You may need to tighten the hinge screws at the top or bottom, or shim the hinges. Otherwise you will need to either adjust the strike plate, chisel out the bolt hole in the door frame (then adjust the strike plate), or worst case, completely rehang the door. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/3 "2021-03-09T11:28:16Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > An old locksmith’s trick is to put some wite-out on the end of the bolt, close the door, then try to turn the key. Open the door and there should be a wite-out mark on the strikeplate that will show you how much and which direction it’s off. You may need to tighten the hinge screws at the top or bottom, or shim the hinges. Otherwise you will need to either adjust the strike plate, chisel out the bolt hole in the door frame (then adjust the strike plate), or worst case, completely rehang the door. This. I don’t slam doors to achieve alignment, but I do sometimes shove them after they’re closed. Or lift them. Or pull on them. Eventually when I get tired of that sort of thing, I go after the strike plate with a file. The white out is a slick idea, but you can usually figure out which side of the strike plate hole to file by looking for witness marks on the deadbolt or the edge of the strike plate hole (where the two parts tend to scrape against each other), or just by thinking for a moment about which direction the door has to be muscled in in order to achieve alignment. In the case of the OP who has to slam the door, it’s probably the side of the hole closest to him/her. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/4 "2021-03-09T16:45:00Z")
On our exterior doors there is a little nubbin thing on the main handle (see this photo [https://www.google.com/search?q=exterior+door+lock+set&safe=off&rlz=1C9BKJA\_enUS633US634&hl=en-US&prmd=sivn&sxsrf=ALeKk00-uU3QT5E83isdpswO-IpxZufE3A:1615307969236&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiEydWN06PvAhVDhuAKHQbFBu0Q\_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=834&bih=997#imgrc=xGEzILjAv0PxwM](https://www.google.com/search?q=exterior+door+lock+set&safe=off&rlz=1C9BKJA_enUS633US634&hl=en-US&prmd=sivn&sxsrf=ALeKk00-uU3QT5E83isdpswO-IpxZufE3A:1615307969236&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiEydWN06PvAhVDhuAKHQbFBu0Q_AUoAnoECAIQAg&biw=834&bih=997#imgrc=xGEzILjAv0PxwM)) If the door is shut gently, that nubbin doesn’t get seated and while the door will stay shut, the deadbolt doesn’t line up. This was done purposefully so that the weather stripping would be sealed properly when the door is locked. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/5 "2021-03-09T16:49:30Z")
That link is just to a page full of different locksets, I don’t see any closeups there. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/6 "2021-03-09T16:52:01Z")
I’d go with DCnDC’s suggestions. I can usually line up the striker plate and chisel out the bolt hole. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/7 "2021-03-09T17:09:59Z")
> [@USCDiver](#): > > If the door is shut gently, that nubbin doesn’t get seated and while the door will stay shut, the deadbolt doesn’t line up. This was done purposefully so that the weather stripping would be sealed properly when the door is locked. Interesting observation. I might add that my front door, which is almost always kept locked, has a deadbolt that operates smoothly, whereas the door to the garage, which is the same type of steel-clad door but without the window insert, has lately had to be pushed a bit to get the deadbolt to engage. That door is very rarely locked, though. So it may have to do with compression of the weather stripping. In any case the tolerances of the latch and the deadbolt are quite fine, or else there would be a lot of wobble, so even slight expansion and contraction due to temperature changes can lead to slight misalignment. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/8 "2021-03-09T20:26:35Z")
My bad, it went straight to a good representation of what I was talking about for me. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2021, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doors-that-cant-be-locked-unless-you-slam-them/937497/9 "2021-03-09T23:46:24Z")
It’s just a Google image search result of many different lock sets, not a specific image.