So I’m in college, and this Friday we had a party at our house that got a little out of hand. Long story short, the bathroom door was completely removed from the wall (it was already kinda messed up.) The problem is, the way it was removed, the screws just ripped out of the frame and therefore the screwholes are completely stripped.
We could put it back up and simply stick the screws in, but they are loose (as in it would require almost no force and no turning to completely remove them.) Obviously, we want the problem fixed better than that.
We could call our landlord and they would fix it, but they would charge us for the time of a professional, so we wanted to see if we could do it ourselves for cheaper.
One idea I had is to unscrew the hinges from the door, shift them vertically by .5-1", screw them back in, drill new holes in the frame, and reattach the door with slightly shifted hinges. It’s kind of hard to explain, but the frame is chiseled away to be slightly shallower where the rectangular part of the hinge rests against the door. This would require me to extend this recess to accommodate the shifted hinge and paint over the part left exposed.
If that idea is not plausible, the only other thing I can think of that we could do is to remove and replace (or possibly just re-orient?) the board that the hinge screws into. This would obviously be more drastic and more expensive, but possibly easier and definitely structurally better.
I’m really not very experienced with stuff like this, so any advice would be helpful. I have played a large role in the construction of houses three times from beginning to end, so I have some level of experience with general building, framing, painting, etc. However, those experiences were through a charitable program with a supervisor on site. Do you think I could/should do either of those options? Got a third option? Should we just call the landlord?
Durham’s Rock Hard Water Putty
Use it to fill in the holes and drill new holes to hang the door. This stuff is hard and strong when done, so if it doesn’t fix the problem nothing will.
Take some soft wood, either toothpicks or perhaps golf tees, even sawdust and glue. Jam it as tight as you can into the existing screw holes. Optimally you have longer screws to get a better bite into the jamb, but if not, using the existing screws should be ok.
Thanks for the quick response. That’s not a bad idea at all and I didn’t know about it.
Just to clarify, are they suggesting that I fill the hole with a golf tee and then simply drill a new hole into the tee itself? Would that work, structurally? Or are they suggesting this simply to fill in the holes, not to re-drill?
I was thinking that the hole filled with a tee surrounded by glue might not be able to properly support a screw hole. Am I wrong?
DON’T MOVE THE HINGES. I’d bet $100 bucks that if you don’t know the toothpick trick, you probably won’t do a very good job moving the hinges.
Put some glue on some hinges, and jam as many as you can in each hole, use a hammer to get them in there as packed as you can, then trim them off with either a hammer and chisel or a diaganal wire cutter. Then you can replace the screws.
Got it. Although I gotta say I’m kind of surprised. What part of moving the hinges would I mess up at? It seems somewhat straightforward. Is it just difficult to get them lined up perfectly?
I assume you mean toothpicks instead of hinges in that first sentence.
So of all these options (toothpicks, random wood scraps, golf tees, Durham’s putty, regular wood putty) which one would be the best? Are they all pretty much the same? I’m leaning sort of towards Durham’s because it’s cheap and I wouldn’t have to buy glue, but I’m not married to it. Any specific opinions?
Plain old wood glue and a golf tee hammered into the hole will give you a repair stronger than the original wood. Use coat the tee well. Also, sand off any paint on the tee. Let it dry for a day. I wouldn’t use the Durham’s, because I doubt that you will be able to get it into the hole very well.
The toothpick thing could work, as would something like Screwgrip (a sort of metal mesh that you stuff into the screwhole and then drive the screw back in), depending on how bad a fit the holes are now. If that won’t give a good fix, here’s what I have done.
I had a similar situation with my patio door (previous owner installed it very badly so screws were not biting into actual wood). My solution was what I posted last night in another question:
Assuming you have access to some basic tools (electric drill is the only critical one) this will only cost a few dollars and it’s a very sturdy fix.
Get a drill bit larger than the hole - I used a 1/4" bit. Also get some wood glue, a length of 1/4" hardwood dowel (any lumberyard, hardware store, etc), some rough sandpaper and an exacto knife. You’re basically going to glue a wood plug into each hole.
Drill the stripped screw holes out with the 1/4" bit. Make it a nice neat hole.
Take a length of dowel a bit longer than the hole is deep. Chamfer the front end with the sandpaper/exacto knife and sand the dowel’s diameter down enough that it will just fit into the hole - you want a snug but not “pound into place” fit. Cut some grooves down the length of the dowel with the exacto knife (these will allow glue to flow in the next step).
Put a thin layer of woodglue on the dowel and tap it into the hole. It’ll stick out a little bit, that’s OK.
Let the glue dry. Cut the excess dowel off flush (you can use the saw on a Swiss Army knife, borrow a chisel, etc).
Now have a couple people hold the door firmly in place, mark the hinge holes, carefully drill properly-sized pilot holes for the screws and remount the door. My patio door had been hung with a combination of short (3/4") screws that barely bit into the wood and overly long 3" decking screws in oversized holes so they weren’t actually screwed into the wood at all. It was wobbly as hell. I fixed the oversized holes with the dowel trick and used appropriate screws to remount the hinges (I used 2" #8 SPAX flatheads; if you’re going to put the time into fixing it might as well fix it right so your landlord doesn’t come after your damage deposit for a wobbly door; spend the extra dollar for good fasteners instead of throwing drywall screws or whatever on there).
I’m going to add one more thing and then I’m done. You don’t want to move the hinges because you won’t rehang the door right and it will be screwed up. I would also see that was done if I owned the place and you’d be paying for a new door.
I second this method for a permanent repair. Toothpicks and golf tees are good for fixing loose screws, thay don’t work that well when a screw has been ripped out. I like to use 3/8" dowels though. Crimp the dowel with a pair of pliers to add grooves, it’s easier and much safer than trying to cut grooves with a knife. I worked for a rental agency years ago doing repairs on apartments and houses, this was how doors were repaired, I never had any call backs after using this method.
OK good to know. For some reason I was expecting it to be relatively straightforward (just making sure it’s square) but I believe that it’s way harder than that. I’m glad I didn’t try it.
Well it’s not much of a story, a bunch of people came that we didn’t know, one of our friends got beaten up and there was another fight and the cops saw the ensuing confusion.
This is the way to do the best job. Make sure the dowel pins fit in tight.
Hanging hinges require square and near perfict alignment. If I had a tenant who rehangs hinges on a door, I will with hold the cost of a door from the deposit.
For how ‘simple’ a door is, a lot of things can go wrong with it. And when they go wrong it’s hard to track down because the symptoms tend to be on the opposite or diagonal area from the cause.
If you move the hinge and something winds up messed up that door will likely never close correctly again, or it’ll never stay open or any of a number of other things. As long as it operated well to begin with, I would just use toothpicks. It’s a tried and true method and quite a bit easier then chiseling hinges into a new spot.
Even with just moving a hinge, you have to be good at chiseling out the mortises on the door and jamb (These are the insets where the hinge fits.) Both the the position and depth of the mortise is pretty critical; a sloppy job will look terrible and the door might not close. After that, the hinge will either need to be tweaked or the mortises deepened or shimmed with cardboard to get the hinge depth right. Also, you will need to fill the old mortises perfectly to hide the fact that you moved the hinge and hope that the landlord won’t mind that the hinge placement is off.
Me? I’d just stuff a bunch of toothpicks and Elmer’s glue into the hole and replace the screws.