Considering that you’re reading a blog on a classical hardware and lighting site, there will probably be many of you that have a home which is classical… or to put it more bluntly, old! And old houses have old doors. And you know what happens when things get old… they stop working properly, they can’t hear like they used to, they get a tiny bit cranky … oh right, we’re talking about doors!

Doors which don’t work properly can be both a pain in the backside, an embarrassment and a waste of money – doors are the number one form of controlling which parts of your house are heated or cooled. So if you’ve got a problem with a door—what’s your problem?!

It won’t open!

Aside from checking whether it is locked when it doesn’t open at all, if your door doesn’t open easily, there are a couple of solutions. You may have too many coats of paint on your door and frame, making both thicker than they were intended to be. Or, you may have doors made of wood which is susceptible to swelling with water, and if it has rained a bit recently, the humidity may be swelling both the door and the frame. On some doors, you may have a loose hinge which drops when the door opens, putting it out of alignment and making one corner or edge hit the frame.

If you have too many coats of paint on your door, you have a couple of options… which one you choose is actually a personality test, too! You can choose to go the slower more methodical way of using paint stripper and either a brush or a scraper to get the paint off. Or you can go the one hit, get right down to it method, which is to grab a sander (or in severe cases, a grinder), and manually remove all that paint. Which is actually quite satisfying!

If your doors swell when it rains, short of replacing them with ones made of better quality wood, try not to use your clothes dryer or ventilate it really well. Make sure you shut all your windows when it rains, before it rains and after it rains. And seal up draughty edges and corners in your house. If the problem’s really annoying, you could also try the sander route.

If you have a loose hinge, the solution is obvious … replace it  If you are lucky, you can chock up the door, put the dogs outside and just unscrew one and screw on the other. If something goes a bit amiss in the process though, keep in mind that many an amateur handyperson has used up all their best swear-words on hanging doors. If in doubt, a carpenter is your best bet.

It won’t stay open!

These creaks are sort of spooky – you enter a room, leave the door open and it slowly swings shut behind you—like someone followed you in and is shutting the door for you! To stop freaking yourself out, you’ll probably need to call in the pro’s. The door likely needs some minor balancing adjustment, and near enough won’t really be good enough. Call a carpenter.

It won’t stay closed!

If you shut doors and they open again (no, not just when you forget to shut them!), pay attention to the handle. Quiet everything down and listen for the latch clicking into place when you shut the door. If it doesn’t, and the door swings open immediately after it is shut, then you have a handle problem. (Don’t worry, we can help you with that!). You also have a handle problem if the door stays sort of shut but you can open it without turning the handle. The spring inside has probably worn out – and you could spend so much time taking apart your handle, finding the exact size and tension spring you need, and then putting everything back together, that unless you have an irreplaceable doorknob set that must be kept together you are better off just replacing the handle.

If you have a door without a latch - just a pull handle - which doesn’t stay closed, you probably have the same problem as when a door constantly closes itself. Call in the professionals – unless you are a professional!

Photo credits: The Kitchen Window by Chris Smart

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