I recently built a new house, and after six months about half of the doors no longer latch into the strike plates. Anyone know an easy way to fix these, other than plugging the screw holes and re-drillling the mounting holes on the strike plates.
TIA
Rick Thornton
A pro painter evaluates a variety of drywall sanders and dust collection systems for quality of finish, user fatigue, and more.
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Replies
It sounds like your doors settled, or the framing, or maybe the flooring installers cut your jambs off to slip the flooring under? Are they prehungs? Did you lift them a little to get the gaps right and not shim between the jamb and the sub-floor? If so, you might be able to get a pry under the offending jamb and lift that leg up (I'm assuming it's the hinge jamb that settled). There's only about six ways to fix that problem. Sometimes, if the gaps allow it, I spread the bottom hinge or squeeze the top hinge. If that's not possible, and nothing can be moved, you can ream out the strike just a little (I use a carbide reamer in a cordless drill), but if the latch if missing the strike by more than say 1/4 in., reaming will make the strikes look terrible. If you start moving the strikes down (or up, which usually isn't the case!), you're heading down a slippery slope, and besides, the gaps around the doors must be looking bad already and might only get worse. Before doing anything that will effect the paint job, I'd wait a while longer to see if the settling is over with.
Gary
A little bit more information rick. Does the door sag? resulting in no latching, or is it still lined up, but the stops prevent the latch from extending fully? Why doesn't it latch?
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Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
The doors are still aligned (not sagging), they just don't close far enough for the latch to drop into the strike plate hole. I live on a lake in Houston, the extreme humidity may have caused the wood to swell.
Rick
That changes things a bit.
Some strike plates have a slot in behind the tab. Stick a screwdriver in the slot, and you can bend the tab around a bit to make the door latch "looser" or "tighter".
If ya don't have the slots, a big flat tipped hammer and a BFH (Big Hammer) can bend it back a little bit. (For those of us who've watched to many Tim Taylor reruns on TV)
I can understand my Dad having to walk to school barefoot in waist deep snow. But how could it have been uphill both ways?
Boss is right, most newer locksets have the strike plate with a bent tab where the latch goes. Those that don't, you could file out the opening to allow the latch to catch. Sometimes bending the tab (on those equipped) will let them catch. Usually, that's only if it was bent the other direction first.
If this is a new house, where's the guy that either didn't paint the top and bottom of the door so's it swelled up, or where's the guy that hung the door and maybe didn't have the stops set proper, or where's the builder who should be glad to take care of this for you?
If you don't want to move the strike out to accept the latch as is cuz you'll have to fill the vacant mortise, or if it's painted stop/jamb and moving the stop back might booger up the paint job, you might go to the hardware, find the strike that doesn't have the bent tab and file or dremel tool the opening bigger.......
Best of luck.__________________________________________
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.