Crooked doors?

Question

I have a few crooked doors in my house. What is the best way to square them out with the floor and wall?

Thanks for the answers so far. I am talking specifically about doorways, not the doors themselves. I think the problem is from settling given the age of the house. Any advice on leveling a floor?

Answer 1

I will first assume that you are talking about a typical interior door, often called a 'hollow core', and not an antique wooden door.

Stand on the side of the door, that when you open it, it pulls toward you.

Examine the gap along the top, and down the doorknob side. The gap should be even all the way.

Most modern interior doors are installed as a package... that is the door is already mounted in the door jamb, when it is delivered to the house.

To adjust this kind of door, first remove the trim. If you do this carefully, you can re-use it. I find a flat putty knife works well to pry the trim off over the nails, and a good pair of pliers will pull the nails with no trouble.

Now... lets assume the gap at the top of the door gets larger as it goes from the hinge side, to the knob side (remember, you are facing the door as it would pull towards you to open) In this case, the door frame needs be adjusted so that the top of the jamb moves to the hinge side a bit, and/or, the bottom moves towards the knobside. Pulling back on the hinge side will 'raise' the opposite corner of the door, and square it up with the frame.

If your gap goes the other direction... that is, the door actually binds at the top of the jamb, on the knob side.. then you would move the assembly the other direction.

You will not have to move the frame very much to make a big difference in the alignment. I find that most interior doors only need 1/4" to 1/2" total movement sideways to square up even the worst alignments.

Some tips for "pre-hung" door assemblies... usually there is at least one long screw thru the latch plate, or in the hole itself, to help secure that part of the door. Often, the center screw of the hinges will be a long screw, that anchors the frame to the stud, while the other two screws will be short... only long enough to hold the hinge to the jamb material itself.

Shim behind any gaps between the door jamb and the studs, and shoot the screws back in place. Then you can re-attach the trim.

The whole process, for someone who does it a lot, will take less than an hour, start to finish, per door.

When shooting the screws thru the jamb into the stud, remember to keep the door "plumb"... that is, straight up and down. When you open the door to about halfway, the door should stay put, and not continue to swing open, or swing back closed. If it swings, then it is not plumb.

If you have any questions feel free to email me.

Have Fun :)

Answer 2

do they rob people as they come in? Lol.

I seriously doubt that the doors are crooked. More likely, the house has settled and the walls are no longer plumb, if they ever were. There are many techniques for dealing with this. It all depends on how bad the situation is. Minor things can be fixed by using longer screws on the hinges and shimming behind them to bring them to a point where they work pretty well. I cannot go into all the different ways to do this here, but trial and error in this method is a good teacher.

If the problem is severe, you may have to resort to other measures. These can include cutting on the door. However if they are hollow core doors, there isn't much cutting that can be done. some times you have to completely disassemble the door and make it over to fit he hole. not an easy job, especially for a beginner. if gaps are the main problem, you can cut wood strips to the required shape and add them to the door frame. when stained or painted to match, you really won't notice if they are in square or not. For more details, feel free to email me at [e-mail]

Answer 3

Depends ..... If they are crooked because the floor is sagging ..... then it is best to jack up the floor and make it level.


If the door has sagged or the wall or frame or jam is out of square ..... you need to level everything off and make it square.

If you can't make the floor level ..... sometimes yoou just have to trim the door evenly to match the jam or floor .... making it look level and open and close with the proper amount of clearance.

Answer 4

Are you sure the doors are the problem? Maybe the house is settling and needs to be leveled up from underneath. That can throw the doors off.