Swinging doors

[Alison556]

A trivial complaint but bloomin annoying anyway.

Almost every door in my house either swings open or swings closed (nightmare if you're trying to get out of the kitchen with a handful of hot things!).

Can anyone tell me why they do this and is there an easy enough way to rectify it?

The other problem is the bathroom door - sometimes it's sticking on the latch side at the top, other times it's OK. It's almost like the top hinge drops slightly.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Symptoms]

Alison - wind (through draft), rising-butt hinges or top-hinge mis-aligned (not perpendicular to lower hinge so the door seems to want to 'fall' forward, thus turn open or closed) are the 3 obvious causes. Fixes = close the back door , swap the rising-butts to plain butts, adjust top hinge (or bottom one) to get the hinges perpendicular to each other. You could just invest in some door stops - I use old (cast iron) flat irons.

Bathroom door - moisture in the air makes the door swell maybe, or worn hinge pin. Fixes = plane a few slithers from the door edge at the top (I bet this fixes the problem); swap-out the worn hinge.

 

[Alison556]

Thanks for that. I've a feeling the problem with the swinging doors is the top hinge being out of line then. There's no through draught (don't have a back door!! ) and I don't think they're rising butt hinges. It's an old house and possibly the frames are not perfect, shall we say and I'm sure the joiner hung the door squint to compensate for the frames being off - I'll try moving the hinges.

Bathroom door has flush hinges on that have a removable pin in them (don't know the proper name) and with you saying that, I had a look at it and the pin is working it's way out - is it knackered? I'll put new hinges on that too. Planing it will be my last resort cos that's the one thing I'm not very good at - I always manage to take a chunk off the edge when I plane something.

 

[gregers]

or it could be that your door frames/liners are in wind,when the doors shut do they shut totally flush with the frames?or does some of the door appear to be springing out?.

 

[Alison556]

Oh heck, I'm not sure. To be honest, other than the living room and bathroom doors, I never actually fully close any of them.

But I've just done a scout round. The Kitchen door doesn't shut properly - it's tight into the door stop on the hinge side but there's a gap between the door and the stop on the latch side - this door keeps swinging closed.

The Living Room door looks like it's OK but it's one that swings open.

My bedroom door is just a disaster to be honest. I thought the original door was warped because it looked like a banana so I got another door fitted but it looks like it's twisted - if you close it and look down towards the carpet threshold strip - which I'm certain is straight - the door is definitely squint - there's more strip showing on one side than there is on the other - it swings closed. The bathroom door is the same - it doesn't swing but it's catching when you close it. The other bedroom door is the only one that looks straight!

I'm finding it hard to describe - would pictures show better?

One thing I have to confess to - and I now know that I've done it wrong - was I decided to replace the skirtings, facings and door stops in the hallway. I got the wood for the doorstops cut to size straight, then I got the doors replaced - that's when I realised that the doors must've been hung squint and if you try to hang them straight, then the stops are all out - or so it seems - there's gaps everywhere. I really did think that it was OK to get the stops cut straight cos I got the spirit level onto the frames before I did it all and they were perfectly level vertically and horizontally. I guess the only thing I didn't check was if the frames were of the same depth all the way round (just thought of that while I was typiing)

If piccies would show you better, I'll go and get clicking with the camera.