This past winter I installed 3 new pre-hung solid pine doors in my parents’ house. I left room for the door to swell in the heat/humidity of summer, but now I know it wasn’t enough. We had an extremely wet spring and now that the hot/humid summer is here the doors are too tight to shut.
I am looking for some suggestions of how to tackle the problem. I was thinking about planing or belt sanding the entire door edge. The doors are stained and polyurethaned, not painted. I can’t widen the opening because the casing is nailed to the jamb.
Thanks
Replies
plane the one edge(striker side) so that you have a tight fit, maaybe 1/16", its not likely to swell more then it has right now.
If you plane to much then come winter you'll have to much gap.
Doug
Power plane. Belt sander would take too long and it's hard to keep a square edge. If you're careful, you can put a 3° bevel on the door edge so the corner clears more easily.
Be careful not to remove so much material by the latchset that the bore hole is no longer in the right place. If that will happen, then you really need to re-set the jamb.
And when you're done, be sure to re-seal the edge to keep the door from warping.
Out of curiosity, how much of gap did you leave when you installed them? If I'm installing in the winter, I'll probably leave almost a 3/16" gap. I know it sounds like a lot, but I really don't want a callback.
-Don
5 degrees is a door bevel.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
There is no cure for stupid. R. White.
5 degrees is a door bevel.
I've been aiming for 3° since that what I had heard before. As an experiment, I cut a 5° angle on a 1-3/8" strip of wood and a 3° on another and set them on the floor to see which looked better (I know I could have used trig, but I wanted to see it in the real world).
Since many of my door jambs seem to be at least 1° off square (which I never noticed before), 3° looks better on some and 5° looks better on others.
So my experiment was somewhat inconclusive. But 3° does appear sufficient for a perfectly square jamb.
-Don
I'm not saying it's right, but all the Brosco doors I've installed have come with 3 degree bevels. Also, Gary Katz recommends 3 degrees in his book, IIRC.
But whatever works, I always say.
"I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Invictus, by Henley.
3° is correct for either a interior or exterior door unless the door is thicker than 1-3/4". Five degrees will give you a gap large enough that it will be seen with many of the thin door stop moldings on prehungs.
mike
I stand corrected then..my bad.
Thanks for the insight, I have been wrong in my ways for 20 odd years.
Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
There is no cure for stupid. R. White.
>> I have been wrong in my ways for 20 odd years.
Now you've got to go back and replace all those doors . . .
what you think he was doing in the twenty even years?
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I don't usually figure the degree of bevel.
I shoot for a about a 1/16" difference between the high and low sides.
It's worked pretty well for 30 years.
I just did an interesting little experiment in AutoCad. I was taught way back in the dark ages that it was 2 degrees per inch of thickness so about 3 degrees for an 1 3/8 door should be correct. In AutoCad I drew two doors, an 1 3/4 x 36 and an 1 3/8 x 30. Then I imposed a circle from the hinge point (assuming its at the intersection of the door and jamb) to the strike side. The larger door measured exactly 3 degrees but the smaller door measured 6 degrees. I'm sure the offset of the hinge changes this (but its too late to get too involved in drawing it). 6 degrees seems extreme and please don't ruin a door until you've experimented.
Speaking of ruining doors, the person advocating bending the hinges needs to burn his Katz book. It stresses the screw's bite in the wood and the connection between the door and hinge fails much quicker. On the other hand, go ahead, I've made a good living coming behind hinge benders and track rats.Norse
"I've made a good living coming behind hinge benders and track rats."
Story of my career...
Speaking of ruining doors, the person advocating bending the hinges needs to burn his Katz book
No shid!
I worked with a guy that always quoted some offical code for doors, I have some paper work around here with the name of it on it but dont remember where!
I think he said that a door was supposed to be 1/8" on 2" of door. If I wasnt so lazy I'd do the math on that and see what the angle is but.......
Doug
Speaking of ruining doors, the person advocating bending the hinges needs to burn his Katz book. It stresses the screw's bite in the wood and the connection between the door and hinge fails much quicker. On the other hand, go ahead, I've made a good living coming behind hinge benders and track rats.Not trying to get into a pizzing match, but I've been bending hinges for over 20 years, and never had one fail. If the hinge pins are removed, and the door is tightly shimmed to the hinge side, there is zero stress on the screws when tweaking...may it's a developed touch?So what do you do when you get a door with close to a 1/4" swages? I fix it and warranty it,too.If you're talking about Gary Katz, sorry, none of his to burn, here. I need a dump truck, baby, to unload my head
some of us go for 3°
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Honestly guys, has anyone here ever actually measured their door bevels? I'd bet anyone here a makita power plane blade that the last door they had to trim was planed to fit with a few ch's more shaved off on the inside edge.
The gap I left in the winter was 3/16" which I thought was plenty, at the time. I am a little shocked at how much these doors have swelled. It is 92 degrees and extremely humid here right now, though. I'm in Upstate New York. Thanks for the reply. I need to buy a power-planer anyway, so this will give me the excuse to buy one.
I also hang doors in the Adirondacks , and I find that 3/16ths gap will do fine if the door is sealed top and bottom. Too many painters don't bother to poly the end grain of the doors and that causes them to swell in the summer beyond what is expected.
I personally believe that half the problem today is the wood that the doors are made from. It's the same fast growth, large ringed crap that's used for everything else, and when it swells, it moves too much. I've seen too many doors that were properly fitted and painted 6 sides be binding problems. Heck, I've got a piece of picture rail hanging over the bed and that thing moves in the long direction over an eighth of an inch from season to season. The lumber sucks.
As far as OP, he's just going to have to plane it to keep it as tight as possible now, but working, and pray he doesn't need bigger stop molding come winter.
Don K.
EJG Homes Renovations - New Construction - Rentals
"Be careful not to remove so much material by the latchset that the bore hole is no longer in the right place. If that will happen, then you really need to re-set the jamb. "Or plane the hinge side and reset the hinges.
Or plane the hinge side and reset the hinges.
Yup. Good suggestion. Of course, if he planes off the mortise completely, re-hanging the door will be tougher.
I've never done it, but I suppose he could deepen the mortise before planing. Since the front plate of the planer will tend to fall into the mortise, he should practise first to determine how much pressure to apply to the heel of the planer to keep it flat.
-Don
I would look carefully at the hinge side first, to see if the margin on that side can be closed enough to fix the summer-swell problem.
Even if I couldn't gain enough there by paring out the hinge mortises and burying the hinges a little deeper, it would save me from having to take as much off the strike side.
I don't know if someone already mentioned it, but you should paint or finish the top & bottom as well as the sides and face to minimize the expansion and contraction.
Did you finish the top and bottom when you originally installed them?
Yes. The doors are clear pine and I stained and polyurethaned all of the surfaces, including the top and bottom.
You might try pulling the hinges away from the latch side with some longer screws into the jack...or, if the hinges have a large swage (distance between the leaves when they're closed), bend the knuckles on the door leaf a little towards the latch side...
then congratulate yourself with a power plane<G>
Just in case the jamb is contributing to the problem, you might want to check that it is still plumb. I had a door where the jamb moved out a bit, making it look like the door had swollen. Of course, since it is a metal door, that seemed unlikely...
Is the door frame primed on all sides?
Sorry, but I'm going to refer to the "book" here. Both industry standards--WDMA and AWI--recommend '1/8" in 2"' bevel on doors. This calculates to something between 2 and 3 degrees. This bevel should be on BOTH edges. The LOCK edge for door clearance on the leading corner of the door, and the HINGE edge for shimming. In this way you could both increase or decrease the gap on the hinge edge without putting the hinge in a bind, and you will never have to bend a hinge again.
The recommended tolerances for the gaps are 1/8" plus or minus 1/32"
The oldtimers kept a silver dollar in their pockets as a "gap gauge"
"Kinky for Gov. of Texas"