Do you have something around your home that’s been sorta broken but not quite broken enough to fix it yet? For us, that forever broken item has been the closet door in our master bedroom. Since our home is still fairly new (built in 2010) it’s subject to some degree of settling and movement. Usually when people say their homes are settling, they’re talking about their foundations… but doors can sag over time too.
What are the symptoms of door sag?
– The door latch doesn’t fully engage the strike plate, so it shuts but doesn’t engage
– To get the door to latch, you have to lift it up by the knob
– To open the door, you have to lift it by the knob
Needless to say, it’s pretty annoying. We had all the symptoms. Here’s what’s going on with the door.
When the door drops, the latch mechanism becomes misaligned with the strike plate. Instead of sitting in the center of the plate opening, the latch mechanism sits too low.
As annoying as this little problem can be, fixing it is fairly simple. Now, your first instinct may be to just lower the strike plate a touch. You certainly COULD do that if you want, but lowering the strike plate means chiseling the door jamb, possibly mucking up the screw holes and the strike plate hole. Instead, you can just add a shim or two to the bottom hinge.
Here’s how to fix a sagging door…
I remove the three screws that hold the hinge to the door jamb. You don’t need to remove the hinge from the door, just the jamb. Then I hold a piece of cardboard behind the hinge plate and trace the outline of the hinge and mark the hole locations.
With the hinge traced, I cut out the shape from the cardboard and punch the holes with a pen tip.
Then I place the shim into the area where the hinge sits and trim off any excess cardboard with a box cutter or scissors.
With the cardboard shim in place, I reinstall the hinge back over the shim. That’s it! Now try opening and closing the door. This worked the first time for me, but you may need to add a second cardboard shim over the first to get a satisfactory result. The shim will compress some.
Not too hard right? I can’t take credit for this tip. I saw it on an episode of This Old House several years ago. I don’t remember what Tom Silva used for a shim, but cardboard seems to work fine.
Any minor annoyances hanging out at your home?
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