Kothis here generally have a substantial wooden main door, often with glass panels in it, and it is the single most used and least maintained item on the house. When one starts to bind or drop, people assume it needs replacing. Usually it does not, and the repair is far less than a door of that size would cost.
A heavy door that has dropped
A solid wooden door is heavy, and over years its weight works on the hinges and on the screws holding them into the frame.
The screws loosen in their holes, the door drops slightly, and it begins to catch on the frame or the floor.
The usual response is to plane the bottom, which is exactly wrong: the door is not too big, it is hanging low. Re-setting the hinges properly — new longer screws into sound timber, or plugged and redrilled holes — lifts it back and the catching stops.
Glass panels in a main door
Older main doors often have glass panels, and that glass is frequently ordinary rather than toughened, held in by beading and putty.
In a door at an entrance, ordinary glass is worth replacing with toughened or laminated when it is being dealt with anyway.
Toughened breaks into blunt granules; laminated holds together and stays in the frame, which also matters for security at an entrance. It is a small extra when the beading is already coming off, and much more expensive as a separate job later.
Doors that stick in one season only
A wooden door that binds during the monsoon and frees up in winter has swollen rather than warped.
Planing it while swollen is the common mistake — by January the same door has a finger-wide gap and rattles.
The right response is to seal the timber so it stops taking up water, particularly the top and bottom edges which are usually bare, and to adjust the hinge or the stop instead. We plane only where a frame has genuinely moved for good, and we say which it is first.
How the job works
- Tell us about the jobSend a few photos, rough sizes and what you need. Use WhatsApp or the form. For a repair, a short video of the door moving helps a lot.
- We call you back in about 2 minutesWe confirm what you need and a time to visit. Where we can, we give you a rough price on the call.
- We come and measureWe measure the opening and check the walls, floor and ceiling around it. Anything made to size is made to these measurements, so they must be right.
- You get a written priceIt lists each item, with GST as its own line. If anything about the job changes, we tell you before we go ahead.
- We fit itYou approve the price and pay the advance. Our own team fits the work, checks that every door and window opens and closes properly, and clears up. Most jobs are done in 3 to 4 days.
