How to Fix a Sticking Door

i'm going to show you how to fix that i'm going to do it right now [Music] so in this video i wanted to show you a quick and easy solution to how you can fix a sticking door like this so there's a couple different reasons your door could be sticking one of them could be because you're in an old house maybe and the frame of the door is starting to drop maybe if this side drops just the door frame the door is going to say stay in the same place because that side doesn't drop then this trim or this part of the frame is going to start hitting up here or it could hit over here or down below or anywhere really some wacky things could happen when houses start settling another thing that could happen is a change in humidity maybe it's a lot more humid than it used to be and the door starts to swell up and even if you just put a coat of paint on the door that little bit of paint could actually cause the door to expand a little bit or even just that little layer of paint could be just enough to make this door hit another thing that could happen is your hinges could be loose and i'm pretty sure that that is the case with this one so if you open the door and grab it at the top and pull on it i can actually feel that the hinges are loose on this you do the same thing with the bottom and grab it if it's hitting down here but it's looking like the hinges are loose on this so that's the first thing that i am gonna try to see if if i can fix it so if i come up here to the hinge that i know is loose i'll grab the door again and you can see that hinge is loose so i want to tighten this hinge up and the way i'm going to do it is first of all i just see if i can actually tighten the screws that are there already that one's tight that one's tight and that one's tight so now with those screws tightened we'll see if that fixed the problem and it did not so that tells me that i need longer screws in here because i'm guessing that these are just the screws that screw into the the frame here and don't get into any stud and that's what you want to do typically you would want a screw right here a longer screw maybe even two and a half three inches to get into the framing that's behind this this frame and you should do it on all of these whenever you install a door you can see that it's not a long screw at all so i'm going to replace that with a longer screw so now i'm going to use a three inch screw get it started [Music] and then once i get here i just want to draw the door in a little bit hopefully that's enough i'll check it perfect that's so much better so you might be saying well matt this is a brand new door of course it was that easy well let me find an old door and show you on that so here is my old bathroom door and you can see i actually fixed this one that same way threw a screw in there and i took this screw out so i could show you in case a long screw doesn't actually fix this issue maybe it's been fixed like that before and the hole might be bigger you can get a long screw but also use a toothpick and what you want to do with that is if the hole is too big grab a toothpick put a little wood glue on it put it in the hole break it off let it dry for a couple hours and then put your screw in there and the toothpick and the glue should give you enough material for you to be able to run that screw in there and pull that hinge in a little bit you can see my old door it's actually the frame has dropped on the hinge side and now i have this big gap up here but that's not the issue we're tackling today maybe in another video but this one is not sticking i already fixed it by running a screw in that way so with my door what was happening is i didn't have any screws into the framing and this just started to sag over time now if that wasn't the case that's a good nice easy way to start if that doesn't solve your problem here's what you can do if you look at your reveal that's what this gap here is called if you look at the reveal of the door you can see mine is pretty even all the way uh if you look at that you'll be able to tell where your door is actually hitting and in that spot you would want to take some sandpaper if you have a power sander that would help and you want to just sand wherever that spot is down a little at a time i would suggest leaving the door on the hinges to do this don't worry about taking it off just know that you're going to clean up a little bit a little bit of a mess leave it on there open and close it sand some off close it see how it does sometimes it's to the point where this is sag so much that you can't even close the door anymore and it hits here and usually that is the hinge issue and with that sometimes it drops so far that this latch actually will drop so that it doesn't catch in the catch anymore and sometimes the doors just won't stay shut uh like i said a lot of times that's because of the hinges if it's catching on the top get a little step ladder or something to stan stand on and start sanding the top same way little by little take some off close it and check it until the door shuts properly this is a good place to start for where your door might be sticking these signs of the door being worn down the paint wearing off you could sand that down and i would sand it just a little bit once it closes sand it a little bit more because when it's all said and done you're going to want to paint this touch it up a little bit i know i haven't but i'm replacing this door at some point so i'm just living with it as is but that's a good place to start and like i said sand it down a little more and then you can touch it up when you're done now if your door is sagging to the point where it's not only hitting up here but it is also rubbing against the floor this one is not anymore because i actually made a video specifically for that where i remove the hinges i show you how to take those off and make a nice perfect cut on the bottom i will leave a link to that video in the description of this one if that is the case for you so a quick and easy explanation for a quick and easy repair i hope it helped you out and if you want to see more of my content you can click here-ish and here-ish check those videos out if you haven't subscribed yet consider it if you enjoy my content and we'll see on the next one thanks for watching

Channel: The Fixer

Views: 123,529

Keywords: Home, home owner, home owner repair, diy, how to, do it yourself, fix, easy, house, house repair, maintenance, door stuck, door hitting, door frame, door hitting frame, door hitting jamb, sticky door, door stuck shut, door wont open, how to fix a door, sagging door, door not closing, door repair, door sagging, door rubbing, fix sagging door, adjust door hinges, sticking door, door latch not catching, door wont shut

Id: U5sGG8Ll4_c

Length: 8min 16sec (496 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 19 2020