Doors
Door Repair
The slab is the part least likely to be at fault, and the part everyone blames. Where it rubs tells you what actually moved, and that is something you can check tonight.
- Typical visit
- One to three hours
- Common fault
- A dropped slab
- Worst advice
- Plane the edge
- Estimate
- Free, fixed in writing
Don't take our word for it
Six things we say, and how to verify each one
Doors attract more bad repairs than anything else in a house, mostly because the bad repairs look like they worked.
| What we say | How to check it yourself |
|---|---|
| The door has not grown | Measure the slab top and bottom with a tape. It is the same size it was. Something else moved, and planing it treats the symptom permanently. |
| The hinge screws have lost their grip | Open the door, take the weight on your foot, and try the top hinge screws with a screwdriver. If they turn without biting, you have found the fault in ten seconds. |
| Your lock is fine and the strike has drifted | Close the door slowly and watch where the latch meets the plate. Riding the edge or sitting below it is an alignment problem, not a mechanism one. |
| The draught is measurable without instruments | Close the door on a strip of paper at six points round the perimeter. Wherever it pulls out freely, air is moving. That maps your heat loss in two minutes. |
| Soft timber at the jamb bottom is the urgent one | Press firmly with a thumb at the base of both jambs and the ends of the threshold. Anything spongy or dark is actively getting worse while everything else on this page waits. |
| Planing cannot be undone | Note the season. If the door binds in August and gaps in January, removing timber in August guarantees the January gap gets bigger forever. |
Five minutes, no tools
Four tests that find the fault
Where it rubs is the diagnosis, and you can do all of this before anybody arrives.
Test 01
Mark where it catches
Rub a pencil along the edge and close it. Top corner means the slab dropped. Bottom edge means hinges or threshold. Latch side only means the strike drifted.
Test 02
Check the reveal all round
Stand back and look at the gap. An even margin means the door is square in the opening; a wedge-shaped gap means the frame or the slab has moved.
Test 03
The paper test
Six points round the perimeter, including both bottom corners. Free-pulling paper is a gap. It is the same test a technician does.
Test 04
Press the jamb bottoms
Both sides and the threshold ends. Soft timber means water has been standing there, and that changes the job from adjustment to carpentry.
On the day
What we demonstrate before we leave
Five things you can watch, and one of them is a test you already ran.
The door closing with a push rather than a shove, latching on the first attempt.
An even reveal top to bottom and side to side.
The hinge screws biting into framing, not just jamb trim — shown before they go in.
The paper test repeated at the same six points you tested before we came.
The sweep touching and compressing without the door dragging on it.
In writing
What you get on paper
Four things on every estimate and every invoice, without being asked.
A named component
The estimate says which part failed — a cord, a balance, a keeper, a roller, a closer. Not 'window needs work'. If a quote will not name the part, it has not diagnosed anything.
A fixed price, before we start
Agreed in writing, and it does not move once we are working. If we think we might find rot or hidden damage, you get a price for both outcomes up front.
What we did not do, and why
Anything we looked at and left alone is listed, with the reason. That is how you know we checked it rather than missed it.
Paperwork an insurer can use
Itemised, dated and photographed where relevant, formatted to submit without anybody rewriting it.
Missouri conditions
What Missouri does to a door
Freeze-thaw, moving ground, humid summers and a lot of brick stoops.
Freeze-thaw on steps and stoops
Missouri does not stay frozen; it cycles. Water gets into brick and stone stoops, freezes, expands and thaws again, and the steps move. The frame sitting above them goes with it, which is why so many doors here start catching after one bad winter.
Two kinds of ground movement
Expansive clay through the north and west, and shifting fill and rock through the Ozarks. Both rack openings out of square over years, and both show up at the door before anywhere else.
Humid summers, dry heated winters
The same slab swells shut in August and shows daylight in January. That annual swing is exactly why planing is the repair people most regret here.
Road salt at the threshold
Months of treated roads and walkways mean brine and grit carried in on boots, sitting at the base of the frame. It corrodes hardware and accelerates rot well beyond what water alone would do.
Questions
Door repair questions
My door catches at the top corner.
Classic sign of a dropped slab or a frame that has moved. Try the hinge screw test — it usually finds it in ten seconds.
Should I plane the door down?
We would rather you did not. Measure the slab first: it is the same size it always was, and timber removed cannot be put back.
Cold air comes in under the front door.
Run the paper test along the bottom. Either the sweep has worn flat or the threshold has dropped, and both are quick, cheap repairs.
The bottom of the frame is soft.
Water standing where it should have drained. Confined to the jamb bottom it is a cut-out and rebuild; once it reaches framing the job is larger.
My brick steps have shifted and now the door sticks.
Common in Missouri freeze-thaw. We can realign the door; stopping the steps moving is a masonry job and we will say so.
Do you work on storm doors?
Yes — closers, latches, hinges and panel swaps.
Coverage
Door repair across Missouri
A mobile service covering the whole state, both metros and the rural counties between them. Pick your town below, or call and we will come to you.
Door Repair Across Missouri
Related
Other repairs we handle
Windows and doors are the whole business, so whatever has failed, it is on this list.
Next step
Tell us where the door is catching
Free estimates across Missouri, with a fixed written price before anything is touched.