External door dropped

[Dave54]

Depends on what your level of expertise is, and what tools you have access to. It looks as if the hinge side joint has pulled at the top, and because the bottom rail is useless, the door has dropped. TBH, I'm not a joiner, I'm a furniture maker, but for an external door I'd have expected some bracing.
I'd take the door off, carefully take it apart as far as possible, which may well be completely, and make a new much deeper bottom rail, or glue another piece onto the edge of the existing piece to save machining the groove. Id cut a full width tenon on it, and cut up the bottom of the stiles (uprights) to take the tenon and make a bridle joint. I'd take out and shorten the panel and recut the rebate or tongue on the bottom, depending on how it fits. Then I'd re-glue the door together, using draw bored oak dowels and glue at the corner joints to pull it all together.
It's a lot of fiddling really. I've got a feeling than if you do anything else though, the door will fall apart after a while.
I'll just add, that obviously if you do take the door apart, then be sure of what you are doing, and preferably have something to replace it with temporarily if you need to leave it for some reason.
It's a load of grief to sort out something that shouldn't have been done like this in the first place.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Depends on what your level of expertise is, and what tools you have access to. It looks as if the hinge side joint has pulled at the top, and because the bottom rail is useless, the door has dropped. TBH, I'm not a joiner, I'm a furniture maker, but for an external door I'd have expected some bracing.

Not strictly the case for a framed and planked door, Dave, but that type of door originally was meant to have planking half the thickness of the frame - mainly to reduce weight - as well as featuring a double haunched tenon with a relish between the tenons. Modern doors are made with poorer quality joints and almost universally with full thickness planking which places them close to the limit of what the joints will support before you start cutting into them. In other words if you cut into the joint by more than a few millimetres the integrity of the door can well be compromised.

Other than dismantling the door, shortening the planks and making a deeper (and incidentally correctly proportioned) bottom rail and then reassembling as you have suggested I cannot see the door ever lasting. Everything else is merely a bodge. One thing I would say, though, is that the new bottom rail should be double through tenoned and foxed (wedged) to give the maximum strength

Whilst I shouldn't really comment on other people' work I do have to wonder how many problems like this are the result in the training programme for carpenters over the last 35 years. A year on the bench gives anyone subsequently working as a site carpenter an incredibly useful insight into how things are made, and therefore what you can and cannot do when it comes to on-site/installation mods. Whoever did this installation probably didn't have a sufficient appreciation of the way doors like this are made to be able to carry out the installation more competently

 

[^woody^]

I do have to wonder how many problems like this are the result in the training programme for carpenters over the last 35 years.

Yes training has gone downhill since the 70's, but I don't think this is a training issue, just a cowboy job.

 

[^woody^]

What are my options?
.

Get the person back to change the door for one that fits the opening. The time passed is irrelevant. Or there is the trading standards route, but they tend not to be much help in cases like this, so a county court claim may be better if the fitter is not co-operative.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I do have to wonder how many problems like this are the result in the training programme for carpenters over the last 35 years.

Yes training has gone downhill since the 70's, but I don't think this is a training issue, just a cowboy job.

The point I was labouring to make is that if you are properly trained, i.e. you understand how stuff is made, then you tend to avoid problems like this where too much off the door is the underlying issue. The key is surely lack of nowledge (coupled with over-confidence)