Enough with the sticking door already
I don’t know why it happened this morning but I couldn’t take any more of the silent taunting from the door that leads from the kitchen to the garage. “I’m just really hard to open and close,” it would say, “and your handy-man skills are puny. Go back to your computer.”
Maybe it was watching the wife throwing her shoulder into the door to get it open this morning then tugging on the other side to get it closed. The handle had become loose from all the jerking. Whatever the trigger, this morning it became me vs. the door.
Down on hands and knees, I could see that left third of the bottom of the door was coming in contact with the metal threshold. I tightened the screws in the threshold to insure no heads were protruding and the plate was flat as possible. I checked for any loosness in the hinges and all seemed well. The next thing to try? Make the door a wee bit shorter.
I took the door outside, laid it across two sawhorses and with a small plane and coarse sandpaper took some wood off the bottom. I also ran a strip of masking tape just above the sanding area to help prevent any upwards tearing of the panel. (There must be a more carpentry term for that.)
I probably only removed a sixteenth of an inch or so but that was almost enough. I put the door back on the hinges and could tell I still needed a tad more off the bottom in the left corner. I could get the sandpaper between that spot and the floor and with a few more minutes of sanding, had a door that opened and closed nicely. I took the wobbly knob apart and tightened up the screws that bonded the two sides. Now it’s easy open with a firm knob. What’s not to love?
Filed under: You might need foundation repair if..
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