DIYbanter - View Single Post

Stuart Noble

wrote:
On 29 Apr, 23:57, Paul R wrote:
wrote:
I have sliding patio doors and the lock has jammed. The locking
mechanism has a black plastic lever. Normally to unlock the doot, one
turns the key clockwise and slides the black lever downwards. The key
does turn and it is possible to move the lever into the down postion,
although the action seems stiffer than normal. However, the door will
not budge. Any idea how to proceed?
thanks
Julian
Look at your Home Insurance policies - I had to have my Patio Doors
replaced to fix a similar problem - as no one could repair the old
mechanism. Insurance company paid for replacing the whole patio doors.
But if they are 'structural' make sure the installers are competent -
or else you might end up with a year of agro to eventually make all the
repairs from dropping the first floor structure when replacing the
ground floor patio door!

Paul R

--
Posted via a free Usenet account fromhttp://www.teranews.com

I phoned the insurance company today but I wasn't covered, so you must
have a better policy than me! However, I have managed to unjam the
door. This is what I did, in case anyone else runs into the same
problem. I unscrewed the metal handles. This revealed a round hole,
through which I could see that two metal plates were trying to slide
relative to each other when the black plastic lever was operated. I
squirted WD40 into the hole. I took the black plastic lever off the
spindle, and turned the spindle, which has a square cross-section,
with a spanner. This unstuck the mechanism and it all works fine now..

Julian

I freed my neighbour's back door yeterday. It seems to be the
upward/downward thrust of the handle that gets jammed rather than the
lock itself, which is a pretty simple mechanism compared to the 3 or 4
latches that engage with the upward thrust. Turns out the door had
actually been unlocked all winter, which kind of threw me :-)