How To Tell if Door Frame Fixed Correctly to Brick

[Door7000]

A neighbour had their 4 year old front door replaced because of bad draughts. The installer said that the original door frame had not been fixed to house correctly - it had not been screwed in and was basically held in place by sealant.

My door is identical and was presumbly installed by the same contractors. How can I tell if my door frame is fixed correctly?

 

[cross thread]

Look at the frame and see if it has been screwed through the frame,or it may have brackets you can’t see.

 

[Door7000]

I can't see any screws in the frame unless they are hidden behind the hinges. Here's some images

Top Hinge

Middle Hinge

Bottom Hinge

Door From Inside

In this image you can clearly see that the door is not square in the frame. There is a big gap top right, thin gap bottom right. I noticed that the two adjusting screws in the top hinge were loose so when the door is jolted when open the hinge moves.

But back to the frame issue. Do I need to take the hinges off to see if there are screws underneath them? And how to I check if the side light is secure?

 

[Door7000]

Ok, this is now slightly worrying.

I just looked at the neighbour's frame and they now have door frame screws in them.

These are not under the hinges but totally visible in the frame. My door does not have these.

Even more worrying is that the larger, double patio doors do not have any visible screws. Maybe this door frame has capping to hide the screws? Is there any way to check this?

Left / Bottom Left

Top Left

Top Right

Right / Bottom Right

None of the windows have visible screws either. All of the upstairs ones are 6ft from floor level up.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

You generally don't hide screws like those under hinges.

 

[crank39]

See this old thread

https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/how-to-remove-this-upvc-window.493332/

 

[Door7000]

Ok, that makes sense @crank39 I just ran a detector over the area and all doors and windows that I sampled had sections of 3" to 5" wide medal near the top, middle and bottom zones.

So that sort of proves they used a cleat fixing system but it does not prove that the frames are correctly connected to the cleats.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

The only way you can use those is to fix them to the outsides of the frame first, position the frame, then fix to the masonry, so if they are there it's been fixed

 

[crank39]

There were some I saw once that were a spring loaded affair that retracted as you pushed the frame into the apature, teeth on the clip bit into the cavity closer, done for speed when fitting on new builds, think they were from eurocell