The Handyman's Pocket Book: Faults In Room Doors.

WARPED DOOR.  Warping is a common complaint with house doors, but this, with a little care, can be rectified by adjustment of the stops.  In most cases these are separate members and can be removed by gently prising off with a chisel.  Having removed them see that the hinges are properly adjusted and the screws tight; also that the lock is in working order and in line with the striking plate.  Shut the door to its normal position and replace the stops, carefully noting that they lie just to the door face without pressure.  The inequality on the margins of the stops will hardly be noticed.  Fig. 1 shows the idea.

If the stops should be made solid with the frame a different method must be employed.  Scribing fillets can be fitted on the edges of the stops, or the existing stops can be pared back to a scribed line until the door seats fairly.  The lock must then be re-adjusted, the box or striking plate being set back to register with the new closing position.

CREAKING DOORS.  A creaking door is generally caused by rusty hinges or binding door stops.  A little oil on the hinges, and the removal of the extra thickness of paint on the door stops will usually make a cure.

CRACKED DOOR PANELS.  The treatment depends upon the crack.  If it is small and does not run right across, a wood sliver can be glued into it and levelled when dry.  As an alternative, where it is desired to avoid impairing the finish of the panel, painter's stopping tinted to the desired tone can be rubbed into the crack and wiped off with a clean rag.  Repainting is necessary afterwards.

If the crack runs right across the panel, possibly being due to the failure of a joint, the parts can often be cramped together by one of the methods in Fig. 2.  The blocks can be screwed to the panel (to the back if one side is more important than the other).  Sometimes it is better to glue them on, to avoid making screw holes.  Glue is rubbed into the cracks and the cramp left on until it has set.

TRIMMING DOORS TO CLEAR CARPETS.  Where a carpet having a margin or surround is fitted, it is usual to fit rising butts to the door.  These are made standard with ordinary butt hinges and it is a simple job to fit them.  They lift the door as it opens, and a door so fitted is self-closing.  In the best way the top rebate of the frame is sloped so that the door clears as it rises.  It si not practicable to make any alteration in this respect when ordinary butts have been fitted before, but it is usually satisfactory if the inner corner is taken off as shown in Fig. 3.  It does not show at the outside because it is hidden by the stop, and at the inside the corner is not touched.  Remember that rising butts are right- and left-hand.  To tell the kind to use stand so that door opens away from you.  If the hinges are to the right you need right-hand hinges.

Another method by which the door is cocked as it opens is to take off the bottom butt and refix it with the knuckle having a greater projection.  Then as the door opens it lifts at the outer edge.  It necessitates plugging the screw holes and making new ones near them, and to ensure that the butts are in the right position it is a good plan to glue a slip of wood at the back of the hinge recess in both door casing and door itself as in Fig. 4.  This same idea is also useful in old property in which the floor slopes causing the door to scrape.

For a close-fitted carpet it is necessary to fit a threshold in the door opening.  It must be equal to the total thickness of the floor covering.  An equal amount is cut off the bottom of the door.  As this joint can be made quite close it forms an efficient draught excluder.  It can be either glued and pinned down, or screws with metal cups can be used.

LOCKS.  There are many types of locks all suited to the particular needs of the joiner, but the most used types to be found in the average house are:

1. The rim lock, screwed on the face of the door, with key-operated bolt, and handle-operated spring latch.
2. The mortise lock fitted within the thickness of the door and operated as the rim lock.
3. The night latch, screwed on the face of the door and having key and knob-operated spring latch bolt.
4. The dead lock, having bolt only operated by key and no latch.

The security factor in these locks varies according to quality, but consists of levers in the better types of lock, or tumbler and wards in the cheaper kinds.  If the lock is oiled periodically this interior mechanism will give efficient service for many years.  A good way of oiling when it is not desired to take off the lock is to dip the key into oil and turn it in the lock.  The latch bolt will be the most likely unit to wear out and usually this is easily replaceable.  The spring of either the rim or the mortise lock may break in time, and manifests itself by the failure of the latch to spring home.  The spring is a standard fitting in various sizes, however.  Its replacement is obvious when the cover is removed.  The best plan is to take the old spring to the shop when replacing it.

Sometimes a latch (or bolt) fails to function owing to the door having dropped.  To ascertain whether this is the trouble mark on the striking plate (which is fixed to the door jamb) the position of the holes in it, drawing lines with a scriber to the front edge (Fig. 5).  Then by bringing the door to the nearly closed position and shooting out the bolt you can see whether the catch and bolt are opposite the lines.  Usually it is quicker to file the striking plate than to attempt to shift the latter.  If it is only slightly out it can be filed in position.  Otherwise it is better to remove it first.  The wood itself may need slight cutting away.

When a catch fails to hold the door it is often due to shrinkage in the wood, causing the closing edge to be so far from the jamb that the catch cannot reach the striking plate, or box catch in the case of the rim lock.  The simplest way of dealing with a rim lock is to shift the box catch.  A, Fig. 6, shows how the shrinkage has drawn the door edge from the jamb.  B shows the box catch shifted outwards.  As it is awkward to make new holes in the wood near the old ones, the holes in the box catch are filed to enable the screws to engage in the same holes, and a small slip of wood is put in at the side to hold the position.  Alternatively, the holes in the wood must be plugged and new holes made.

In the case of a mortise lock the simplest way is to remove the striking plate and fit a piece of wood to the jamb as in Fig. 7.  The ends are tapered to give a neat finish, and the thickness is decided by the gap between the door edge and the jamb.  If preferred the wood can be taken along the complete height of the jamb.

In both these cases the alteration is effected without the need for touching the paint work.  When a door is to be repainted, however, a more satisfactory way is to remove the hinges and glue a strip at the edge.  The hinges are cut into this and the door hung afresh.  Apart from a neater-looking job, the advantage is that the door is made much more draught-proof.