Hanging a door...

[Jonno L]

Gday guys,

I did a bit of a search and couldn't find out anything about hanging doors. I now know how to build one, polish one, stain one etc though!

I had to kick in my back door the other day (two kicks and I was in, no neighbours called the cops, makes me feel real safe). So now I have the task of fitting a new solid core door tonight. I'm about to measure it up the old one and go buy one from Bunnings, but I figure I'd ask a few basic questions first.

Is there any common mistakes that are made?

From what I understand, you just buy a door made to size and hope to God it doesn't need planing, stick it on a couple of thin chocks to keep it a few mill off the ground, mark where the hinges go, chisel in and attach the hinges, and then screw the door to the frame. Is that it?

Cheers

Jonno

[joe greiner]

Almost. To reduce future woes, remove one of the tiny screws in each hinge, and replace with larger screws to engage the stud itself instead of just the casing. Might not need on lower hinges, but on the top hinge I'd use all larger screws.

Also, you might have to fiddle a bit with the latch arrangement.

Joe

[Jonno L]

Gday joe,

Thanks for replying. I got the door on tonight, it was a little complicated but nothing a bit of commonsense couldn't deal with. It's a really close to the left (hinge) side of the door frame, and about 7mm gap from the right (latch) side, with a bit of sag in the top right hand corner. I'll buy some washers tomorrow and plum it all up.

Cheers

Jonno

[silentC]

Sounds like the jambs are out of plumb, or maybe your mortices in the door aren't equal? You can shim the bottom hinge out to square it up by cutting a rectangular bit of cardboard or something similar to fit in the mortice and fix the hinge over it. Normally you'd aim to get the gap even all the way around but that might be difficult when replacing an old door. Did you make the mortices on the door equal to the hinge leaf thickness so that it sits flush?

[Jonno L]

Mate I don't even know what a mortice is. Does WWF have a glossary?

[silentC]

The mortice is the bit you chiseled out for the hinge.

Here's one glossary that might be useful: http://countryworkshops.org/glossary.html