Removing internal doors where the hinges have been painted

[whatme]

I've recently moved house and all the internal doors have had their hinges painted over in years and years worth of white gloss. The house obviously had new carpets fitted before going on the market too, and all the doors drag on the new carpet and need to be trimmed. I've tried unscrewing them, but cannot get through the layers of paint.

Is there a trick to getting the screws out, or even better a neat and easy way to trim a few mm off the bottom of each door without taking it off?
Thanks.

 

[Gerrydelasel]

Can't you scrape the paint out of the screwhead with a knife? Once you have exposed the head, an impact driver may be required.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Old chisel to remove the paint and a Stanley knife or awl to clean-cut the slots. If the hinges are gash a Dremel tool can be used to clean up or reslot the heads. Impact driver works but only if you have one of the 3-speed models where you can turn down the torque/speed and even then you'll probably wreck quite a few bits. Old school technique is to regrind the tips of screwdrivers to be an exact fit and hit the end with a hammer whilst simultaneously turning the handle but I've never found that much good for stubborn screws unless you have those screwdrivers with a hex shank in which case a spanner can be used on the shank - but it does require 3 hands! In the worst cases you may have to resort to drilling out the screw heads in which case try to leave enough metal to get a grip with a pair of nippers or pliers

Just refurbishing 20 odd Victorian doors (as a background task) and to get all the hinges off we burned through 8 or 9 driver bits (even withba 3-speed impact) and still had to drill out 3 or 4 screws.