Door repair
Door Repair
The slab is the part least likely to be at fault, and the part everyone blames. Planing it solves August and creates January.
Service
Door repair and realignment
Typical visit
One to three hours
Most common fault
A dropped slab
Estimates
Free, firm price first
Work out what you have
Three questions that find the fault
Where a door catches tells you what moved. You can work this out before anyone arrives.
01
Where does it rub?
02
Do the hinge screws bite?
03
Can you see daylight when it is shut?
The mechanics
Four parts, and the slab is rarely one of them
A hung door is the slab, a frame of two jambs and a head, hardware in the form of hinges and a latch, and a seal. When something goes wrong, the slab is almost never the cause.
Far more often, hinge screws have lost their grip in jamb timber that has dried out over decades, and the slab has dropped a few millimetres. Or the opening itself has moved with the building. The door then catches at a corner, or the latch stops meeting the strike, and the instinct is to reach for a plane.
That is the one repair we will argue with you about. Planing removes timber permanently to compensate for something seasonal. It works until the slab shrinks back in January, and then you have a gap you cannot close and a door that whistles every time the wind gets up — which in Iowa is most of the time.
On arrival
What we check before we quote
We check the whole assembly, because the fault is almost never where the symptom is.
- Where it rubsMarked and measured rather than guessed at
- Hinge screw purchaseWhether the screws are biting into framing or just jamb trim
- Hinge wearPin and knuckle play on heavy or glazed slabs
- Frame squareDiagonals measured, since Iowa openings move
- Strike registerWhether the latch enters cleanly or is riding the plate
- Weatherstrip compressionTested with paper around the full perimeter
- Sweep and thresholdWear, height and whether it still seals at the ends
- Jamb bottomsPressed for soft timber where meltwater and salt collect
- Drainage at the sillWhether water runs away from the door or toward it
- Storm doorCloser, latch and alignment, since it affects the primary door
If you leave it
What happens if you leave it
Doors escalate quietly, and almost always in the same direction: downward, into the threshold.
Right now
Screws and adjustment
Long screws into the framing, a strike repositioned, a sweep replaced. Under two hours, no materials to speak of.
Next season
Seal and threshold
A dropped slab does not seal, so wind-driven rain and snow get in at the bottom and sit on the threshold. Now the sweep, the seal and the threshold all need attention.
Two winters on
Timber
Water and salt sitting at the base of a jamb soften it. The hinge screws have even less to hold on to, so the slab drops further and the cycle accelerates. Rot repair enters the conversation.
Eventually
The frame
Once rot has passed the jamb and reached the framing behind, the repair stops being carpentry and starts being construction. This is the one outcome genuinely worth avoiding.
Soft timber at the bottom of a jamb is the single item on this page worth acting on quickly. Caught early it is a section of wood and an afternoon.
Iowa conditions
What Iowa does to a door
Wind, drifting snow, and timber that moves twice a year.
01
Wind load on an exterior door
Iowa's open ground and persistent wind put real pressure on an entry door. A latch that only just engages will rattle in a gale, and a seal that has flattened lets wind-driven snow through a gap you cannot even see. Doors here have to seal properly rather than approximately.
02
Drifting snow at the threshold
Wind drifts snow against doors rather than letting it fall evenly, so a north or west-facing entry can sit under a drift for days. It melts, refreezes and works into the threshold and jamb bottoms, which is where most Iowa exterior doors eventually fail.
03
Humidity, then dry heat
Humid summers swell slabs and jambs; heated winters shrink them. The same door binds in August and shows daylight in January, which is exactly why planing the edge is the wrong move.
04
Century farmhouses and settled openings
Iowa has a large stock of old farmhouses and small-town homes whose openings have been moving for a hundred years. Frames are frequently out of square by a visible amount, and adjusting within the opening beats trying to fit a standard prehung unit into it.
On the van
What we carry for door repairs
Stocked on the van, so most door work finishes the same visit.
Rot repair is quoted after we have seen it, because how far it has travelled is the whole question and nobody can answer that from a photograph.
Coverage
Door repair across Iowa
A mobile service covering the whole state, town and country alike. Pick your town below, or call and we will come to you.
Door Repair Across Iowa
Questions
Door repair questions
My door suddenly catches at the top corner.
Classic sign of a dropped slab or a frame that has moved. Hinge repair and realignment usually solve it without touching the door itself.
Should I plane the door down?
We would rather you did not, and we will explain why before you do. It commits you permanently to one season's dimensions.
Cold air comes in under the front door.
Either the sweep has worn flat or the threshold has dropped. Both are quick, inexpensive repairs with an immediate effect on a windy night.
The bottom of the frame has gone soft.
Meltwater and salt have been sitting where they should have drained. Confined to the jamb bottom it is a cut-out and rebuild; once it reaches framing the job is larger.
Our farmhouse is old and nothing is square.
Those are exactly the doors worth repairing. A modern prehung unit frequently will not fit an opening that has been moving for a century.
Do you work on storm doors?
Yes — closers, latches, hinges and panel swaps. In an Iowa winter a working storm door earns its keep.
Everything else
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list.
Tell us where the door is catching
Free estimates across Iowa, and a firm price before anything is touched.