The first thing that you should do is find out what is really moving in your
house and why it is moving, then develop a strategy to fix the cause rather
than the effect. Your doors aren't your problem. Adjusting door strikes
without fixing the real cause will only temporarily solve your door latch
problems. If you don't fix what's causing everything to go out of plumb, in
a short time you will be adjusting the door latches all over again.

Let me guess; your house has no basement, it's on piers over a crawl space,
and when it rains water collects under your house. Am I right so far? If not
send another note and tell us what you think is causing your house to go in
and out of plumb or settle. Significant humidity changes are usually the
cause.

If I'm right, then you need to make changes in the shape of your land around
your house so surface water runs away from your foundation, at least 15 feet
away, when it rains. Fix the gutters and downspouts too. All of the rain
water has to go away from the house, not under it. After you get all that
fixed and the ground under the house is reasonably dry again (you may need
to wait a few months for it to dry) the next thing that you need to do is to
cover the dirt in the crawl space with plastic sheeting to stop surface
evaporation. Also, you need to ventilate the crawl space to keep the air in
there as dry as possible. Then you need to get a big house jack and some
blocking and go under your house and re-level your floor beams by adding
shims between the piers and the beams (you may want to hire someone for this
part - it ain't fun and takes some house mover skills). After your house is
dry underneath and level again you will probably discover that you don't
need to adjust the door latch strike plates and the doors will open and
close like they did when your house was new, because humidity changes in and
under your house won't be as great anymore.

I've cured several houses with "moving door latch syndrome" this way.
--
Charley



"Thomas G. Marshall" . com
wrote in message news:C5hqf.4823$Ap1.1843@trndny06...

I need a little help here. From 10 minutes after my house was built 8
years
ago, the doors have been going in and out of plumb.

The thing that really drives me bonkers is that there seem to be no strike
plates in any of the places I've looked that are made with tall openings
to
accommodate such rogue doors. All I've found were much larger strike
plates
for /exterior/ doors, and they are just too large. I'm willing to
router/chisel a new recess in the door jamb to fit a larger plate, of
course. That might be a different post.

The sledgehammer reference is what I was looking for the first time I
attempted this. Was going to destroy something to feel better. Went to
BJ's looking for a bucket of drugs.

Ok, questions, since I [more than] clearly don't know what I'm doing.

1. Does anyone know of bigger opening strike plates. Say, 1/2" taller
than
normal to accommodate renegade pain in the ass door movements?

2. If I do physically move the plate, do I {shudder} redrill, fill the
holes
with glue & matchsticks and hope that it is enough to hold the new screw
1/8" down?

3. Should I loan my sledgehammer to a friend far away, as a safety
precaution?

Thanks so much in advance,

Thomas, going nuts.

--
If I can ever figure out how, I hope that someday I'll
succeed in my lifetime goal of creating a signature
that ends with the word "blarphoogy".