Carpentry advice for Crawley homes
Should you repair or replace that door?
A door starts playing up and the first thought is often a new one. Sometimes that is right. Quite often it is money you did not need to spend.
Doors are simple things. Most faults come from the hinges, the frame or the fit, and the door itself is fine. Here is how to tell which you have.
Faults that are nearly always a repair
The door has dropped
If the top corner on the handle side rubs the frame, the door has sagged on its hinges. The screws have worked loose or the wood behind them has given up. Longer screws, a plugged screw hole or a new hinge puts it back.
It sticks in damp weather
The timber has swollen. A carpenter planes a little off the tight edge and seals the bare wood. See why doors stick for the full list of causes.
The latch will not catch
The latch and the metal plate on the frame no longer line up. Moving the plate a few millimetres cures it.
It rattles or lets in a draught
The door stop is in the wrong place or the seals are worn. Both are small jobs.
It scrapes a new floor
The floor level has gone up. The bottom of the door is trimmed to suit.
Signs the door itself is finished
- Rot in the door. Soft, crumbling wood at the bottom rail of an outside door, where the rain sits.
- A warp. The door is twisted, so it touches the stop at the top and stands off at the bottom. A twist cannot be planed out.
- Joints opening. On a panelled door, the frame pieces are pulling apart and daylight shows.
- A hollow door with a hole in it. The thin skin of a hollow door cannot be patched so that it lasts.
- Cut down too far. A door trimmed many times over the years may have little solid wood left at its edges for hinges and locks to hold.
In these cases a repair is throwing good money after bad. A new door, hung properly, is the lasting answer. Read about door hanging in Crawley.
The screwdriver test for rot
You can check an outside door and frame yourself in two minutes. Take a flat screwdriver and press the tip into the wood near the bottom, first on the door, then on the frame each side.
Sound wood resists. You will leave a small dent at most. Rotten wood lets the blade sink in, and it may come out damp with crumbs of timber on it.
If only the foot of the frame is soft, a carpenter can cut that section out and joint in a new piece. This is a common job on outside door frames and costs far less than a new frame. If the rot runs high up the frame or into the sill and beyond, replacement makes more sense.
When it is the frame, not the door
People often blame the door for what the frame is doing. A frame that has come loose from the wall moves each time the door shuts. A frame that is out of square leaves a tapering gap along the top.
A carpenter checks the frame first with a level and a square. Re-fixing or packing a frame is cheaper than a new door, and a new door hung in a bad frame will misbehave just like the old one.
What the guides say each route costs
| Job | UK guide price |
|---|---|
| Replacing a door frameSource: MyJobQuote door frame replacement cost guide | £115 to £550typical about £430 |
| New front door and frame, fully fittedSource: MyJobQuote new front door cost guide | £550 to £1,500typical about £1,000 |
Typical UK guide prices from the guides named, not quotes. A simple repair such as re-fixing hinges or easing a door is usually priced by the hour.
Good reasons to replace a sound door
Sometimes a door works perfectly and you still want rid of it. That is fair enough. The plain, flat doors fitted in many of Crawley's 1950s to 1970s houses do their job, but they are light, let sound through and look their age.
Swapping them for solid or panelled doors makes rooms quieter and the house feel better built. If you are doing several, have them hung in one visit, as the price for each door comes down.
A front door is also worth replacing if its locks no longer meet what your home insurer asks for, or if it is so thin that the hall is always cold.
Get a straight answer on your door
A door fault caught early is a quick repair. Left alone, a dropped door chews its frame and a small patch of rot spreads up the timber, until repair is no longer an option.
Say what the door is doing and where in Crawley you are. It costs nothing to ask.