Doors & hardware
Why your door won't latch
The most common repair request there is, and the most commonly fixed the expensive way. It's almost never the lock — it's a sixteenth of an inch of geometry.
A door that will not stay shut is the single most reported item on the lists we receive, and the instinct is always the same: the lock is broken, buy a new lock. It is almost never the lock.
A door is a rectangle hung on one edge, sitting in a frame, with a latch that has to hit a hole in a strike plate. All four of those things — door, hinges, frame, strike — have to stay in the same relationship to each other. Houses move. Wood-framed houses move seasonally with humidity. Foundations settle for decades. A frame that was perfectly plumb at closing can be out by a sixteenth of an inch ten years later, and a sixteenth of an inch is the entire difference between a door that clicks shut and one you have to shoulder.
Diagnose it from the gap
Close the door and stand back a few feet. The gap around the edge tells you almost everything.
- Gap even all round, latch just missesThe strike plate is out of position. This is the most common case by a wide margin. The fix is moving or slightly enlarging the strike opening, which takes minutes and costs nothing.
- Gap wider at the top of the latch side, tight at the bottomThe door is sagging — the top hinge is losing its grip. Usually stripped screw holes. The fix is repairing the holes properly and using longer screws that reach the framing behind the jamb.
- Door rubs the frame on one side through the whole swingThe frame has moved or the hinges need shimming. Adding a thin shim behind one hinge leaf shifts the whole door in the opening surprisingly effectively.
- Only sticks in summerHumidity. The door has swollen. Do not trim it — a door trimmed in August rattles in January. Find the specific contact point and address only that.
- Latch retracts sluggishly or not fullyThis one genuinely is the hardware. Worn or gummed-up latch mechanism, and here a replacement lockset is the right answer.
Most interior door hinges are installed with short screws that only grip the jamb — a thin piece of trim, not structure. Replace the middle screw in the top hinge with a three-inch screw that reaches the framing behind the jamb, and it pulls the whole door back up into position. This one change resolves a remarkable share of sagging doors, and it costs the price of a screw.
Why replacing the lockset is the expensive way to not fix it
If the strike is misaligned, new hardware in the same misaligned frame produces exactly the same problem with a shinier knob. You have spent forty dollars and an hour and changed nothing about the geometry. We get called out to this specific situation constantly — a homeowner who has already bought and installed two locksets and is now convinced the door is haunted.
Stripped screw holes, done properly
The toothpick-and-glue trick works for about a year. The proper repair is a hardwood dowel or a purpose-made plug, glued in, cut flush, and re-drilled. That restores real holding power in the original position, which matters because moving the hinge even slightly changes the door's alignment. Done properly it is usually stronger than the original installation.
When it's worth calling someone
Honestly, one door is a reasonable afternoon project if you are inclined that way, and the fixes above are the real fixes rather than simplified versions. The reason to call is that if one door in your house is annoying you, the others are usually within a year or two of the same condition — particularly in homes built between about 1998 and 2012, where the hardware went in as one package and fails as one package. Doing eight doors at once takes a fraction of the time per door that doing one does.
From our own jobs
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Related
Your door only sticks in summer. Don't plane it.
Wood doors swell in Piedmont humidity and shrink back in winter. Trimming in August gives you a rattling, drafty door by January.
Why everything in your house broke the same year
If your home was built between 1998 and 2012, the components didn't fail at random. They were installed together, to a price, with the same service life — and they're expiring on schedule.
Next step
Send the list. We'll tell you what's realistic.
Photos, notes, an inspection report, a screenshot of your notes app — whatever you have. We read every one and reply with a straight answer, including the parts we're not the right fit for.