Since we finished all of the major repair work year and a half ago, our house has settled a little bit. I knew that this would happen, so it did not bother me too much. Frankly, I think we got off pretty lucky. The “south addition” where the kitchen and dining room are now located received the most attention with the outer walls being jacked up and a pretty sizable section of foundation wall being rebuilt.
To give credit where credit is due, I saw this on “Ask this Old House” recently and thought I would try it.
Because of the settling, we have two doors that no longer latch when they are closed. I wanted to fix these sooner, however, I also wanted to make sure the settling process was done. The two doors in question are right next to each other, one is the living room coat closet, the other is the kitchen pantry.
There are three ways to fix this problem:
1. Remove the trim, and remove the entire pre-hung door assembly and reinstall it. That sounds like a lot of work.
2. Move the door striker either up or down so that the door latch will catch it again, but then you will see the area where the door striker used to be.
3. Or you can adjust the door by putting spacers or shims between the hinges and the door frame
I went to several hardware stores to buy some hinge spacers. These are plastic forms cut out to the size and shape of a door hinge that are used shim the hinges. Nobody had any and nobody knew what I was talking about. So I made my own from some thin cardboard. It was fairly easy, first I removed the bottom half of one of the hinges that was set in the door frame, then I traced several outlines on a piece of thin cardboard and cut them out with a knife.
Looking at the top of the door, one side was lower than the other and the door did not look square in the frame. Since it was the side opposite the hinges, I put the shims in the bottom and middle hinge, leaving the top hinge alone. I was hoping that this would make the door more aligned with the frame. The coat closet door in the living room is way off. I put 5 cardboard hinge spacers in the bottom hinge and 3 spacers in the middle hinge.
The door still will not catch. I looked at the frame itself and there are several questionable places where the door jamb is not aligned. I know the house has settled, but I don’t think it settled that much. There are no cracks in the drywall or other signs of problems. In short, I think the contractor installed a defective door. At some point I may purchase another pre-hung door and install it myself, but for now I will leave it alone.
The pantry door was not that far off. I put four spacers in the bottom hinge and two in the middle hinge, leaving the top hinge alone. That did the trick, the door now looks like it is square in the frame, the door latch meets the striker plate correctly and latches.
So, I have a 50 percent success rate with the method described on “Ask this Old House.” It might have been better if the contractor had detected the defective door and ordered another one instead of installing it.
I’m renting and the latch to my bedroom door was just slightly below where it needed to be. Two thick pieces of cardboard later between the bottom hinge and the frame and now it closes! Thanks!
Door jam spacers are great! a lot of times you still need to move the strike plate after you use your spacers to square the door. what will happen when a door gets old the weight of the door will pull its self and the jam away from the frame so the spacers at the bottom hinge paired with a 3 inch screw in the top hinge will fix it. A 3 inch screw is long enough to sink into the frame through the hinge hole pulling the door back into place.