Fix a Door That Doesn’t Close Properly

LESLIE: Now we’re going to Maryland where Greg has a sticky situation. Greg, what’s going on with that door?

GREG: Oh, my front door. What happens is with … like depending what time of the day or the year, I guess with humidity the wood expands.

TOM: Yeah, and it also is impacted by your horoscope. (laughing)

GREG: Anyway, sometimes I would have to … have to lock my deadbolts to keep … you know, I have a deadbolt on the top and regular door lock on the bottom …

TOM: Right.

GREG: Sometimes, you just want to shut the door and go and do something outside. But, sometimes, if you shut the door, you can’t get it to shut. You come back and the door’s wide open because it never catches.

LESLIE: Well, that’s just the wood swelling and expanding and contracting …

TOM: Yeah, and …

LESLIE: … depending on what the weather is.

GREG: The house is probably – what? – two, three years old.

LESLIE: Oh.

TOM: That’s all? Wow.

GREG: Yes. It’s about two, three years old and the guy said, “Yeah, it might be the wood expanding” and I just …

TOM: Well, what it is is if it’s only a two or three-year-old house, what it is is an improperly installed door. You know, the door is either twisted; it is installed crooked; there’s not enough room; there’s too much room. Something is wrong about that door. Now the fact that it’s wood, obviously, could be a contributing factor to it because wood is going to expand and contract a lot more. The best option for a door, today, is a fiberglass door because a fiberglass door looks exactly like wood with the new finishes.

Thermatru Doors, for example, has this new technology; it’s called AccuGrain. And the exterior of that door, I’m telling you, is absolutely a dead ringer for wood; you just can’t tell the difference. I … even my trained eye couldn’t pick it up. But it’s dimensionally stable.

Now, if you’re not going to replace your door, what you really have to do here, Greg, is re-hang the door; and, really, start from scratch. And a good carpenter can do this.

GREG: It depends on like if there’s a lot of humidity in there? Or like a certain time of day?

TOM: Yeah, the more moisture, the more expansion.

GREG: It definitely needs to be re-hung?

TOM: It definitely needs to be re-hung. It shouldn’t be doing this and only be a couple of years old.

GREG: Okay. I’m glad I called because I was about to go buy a new lock system, thinking it was probably …

TOM: No, it sounds like it’s just out of whack. Thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.