My friend has a deadbolt on her front door. Original to the house, so maybe 12 years old. Apparently it has always been “stiff” to open and close. I decided to take a look at it for her and possibly replace the deadbolt. The issue is that the deadbolt itself is entering the door frame opening low. I can see it if I shine a flashlight through the crack when turning the lever.
It’s not the strike plate, it happens with that removed. I can potentially make the door hole in the frame larger but there isn’t a lot of room for error there and I’d rather not have to repair the door frame.
If I pull up on the door, the deadbolt slides home perfectly. So maybe the door can be adjusted? I’m not sure how to go about that. The three hinges are all pretty flush and tight to the frame and door.
I was thinking of trying to place a washer or two over the top most pin between the hinges?
Any thoughts? It won’t need that much of an adjustment.
This is probably due to either the doorframe not being properly shimmed when installed or the house ‘settling’. I don’t understand your proposed fix of “trying to place a washer or two over the top most pin between the hinges” but the correct way to fix this is to reshim the door frame, and the ‘quick’ way to fix it is to just rehang the door in the frame with a really thin piece of shim stock behind the lower hinge plate (assuming that it is square enough that the door doesn’t rub or jam).
First see what allows the door to move when you pull up on it. Likely the hinges are flexing. There are various ways to correct that depending on the conditions. It’s probably easier to enlarge the hole in the door jamb and replace the strike plate. You can get longer strike plates so the screw holes don’t line up in the same place. Or depending on the jamb you might be able to use longer screws that go deeper into the jamb. It usually needs ome chiseling to inset a larger plate. It’s not hard to fill the old screw holes either.
Yeah, I was just spit balling. I thought if I put a washer between the knuckles of the top hinge it would essentially raise the door the depth of the washer. Putting a shim behind the lowest hinge makes more sense.
Yes, my concern with enlarging the hole in the frame is that I am going to “break through” to the screw holes. Hopefully between shimming the lower hinge and filing out the hole as much as I can I can get it to work.
If you think carefully, there is no excess space between the 3 knuckles of the jamb hinge half and the door hinge half. They fit together snugly exactly 1 way. There’s no space to slip a washer in there. With most of those you couldn’t even fit a single layer of aluminum foil in there.
You could insert a washer on top of the assembled hinge halves before running the hinge pin down / in, but all that does is raise the hinge pin, not move the hinge halves or the door.
I also think the hinges are flexing. That’s a typical problem and would explain why you can lift the door. With the door open a bit, lift it up and see if you notice the hinges moving around. If the hinges don’t move, then see what is actually moving when you lift the door. Whatever is moving around can likely be tightened up.
If the hinges are loose, they won’t actually be moving up and down. They’ll be flexing horizontally. Look for any movement in the hinges.
This sort of problem is a real pain in the ass.
If you can narrow it down to the hinges, you might be able to drill out the screw holes, glue in some dowels, and put longer screws back in to tighten up the hinges. But, it’s possible that the door frame is also out of square, which might make fixing this hard.
I have also used this technique for re-aligning doors in my 80-year-old house.
But I always use pieces of thin cardboard, cut from a cereal or cracker box. Cut one to size, remove the three hinge screws from the frame, place the cardboard piece behind the hinge, and reattach the screws. The screws will go right through the thin cardboard.
I’m guessing that I’ve fixed at least six doors in my house using this method. And it’s really cheap.
Actually, in my back (exterior) door, I have had to add another slim cardboard shim. Otherwise, on all the interior doors, they have held up amazingly well.
I would be extremely afraid of slicing myself using this method!
One thing to be aware of – maybe for the knowledge base more than anything else – is that some fire doors (eg, a door from the garage into the house) may use spring hinges:
For some people, the premade shims may be an easier option in this circumstance, because you can simply loosen (rather than remove) the screws that fasten the spring hinges in place, and then slide the shim in from the side.
Otherwise, spring hinges can be a bit of a mousetrap
Is the door reveal consistent? I assume not. Most doors aim for 1/8-3/16" all around. Assuming it’s settled, the upper hinge side will be large and the upper strike side will be small. This is very common. Shimming the hinges with cardboard is the way to go, and cereal boxes are just dandy. You can also run a longer GOOD screw through the hinge that needs to tighten up–you can usually get them to suck over a skosh. If you do need to slightly move screw locations, I recommend takeout chopsticks and glue. Easy peasy.
Yes, another fix I have used (learned from the internet, of course!). I drilled a fourth hole in the hinge (right in the middle) and put in a 1 1/2" lag screw. Worked like a champ.
