Doors take a beating
A door is opened and closed many times a day, slammed by the wind and leaned on. Wooden doors handle it well while they are sound, but hinges wear, joints loosen and the bottom rail takes water from rain and mopping. Most of the faults below can be repaired without replacing the door.
Glass panels in wooden doors
Many wooden doors have glass panels, from small lights in a front door to fully glazed patio doors. A cracked panel is removed by cutting out the putty or taking off the beads, and a new pane is fitted and sealed. For doors we recommend laminated safety glass, because a door is where people are most likely to push against the glass. The glass options are set out on our window glass replacement page.
Hinges
Wooden doors are heavy, and the top hinge takes most of the load. As the screws loosen and the holes wear, the door drops at the handle side. Worn holes are plugged and redrilled, hinges are replaced where they are worn, and the door is rehung square.
Locks
Locks in wooden doors fail when the door has moved and the latch no longer meets the keep, or when the lock itself wears out. We realign the keep or replace the lock, and check that the door closes without being pushed.
Dropped or sticking doors
A door that scrapes the floor or catches the frame has usually dropped on its hinges or swollen with moisture. Rehanging corrects a drop; easing and sealing the edges deals with swelling. If a door sticks every rainy season, sealing its bare top and bottom edges often solves it for good.
Wooden sliding doors
Wooden sliding doors combine the timber problems above with the running gear of a sliding door: worn rollers, dirty or damaged tracks, and a heavy panel that is hard to lift. The panel is taken out, the running gear renewed, and the timber eased and sealed where it binds. Our page on sliding door repairs compares wooden, aluminium and steel sliding doors.
When aluminium makes sense
If the door has rot through the rails, keeps swelling however it is sealed, or you want larger glass and less upkeep, an aluminium replacement is worth pricing. Aluminium does not swell or rot and needs no painting. See aluminium doors for sliding, folding and hinged options.
Repair or replace?
Repair when the timber is sound and the fault is the glass, the hinges, the lock or a door that has moved. Replace when rot has reached the joints, when the door has warped, or when you want a different type of door altogether.