barry martin wrote:

Paul:

PM My steel exterior door is not closing properly. The doorknob bolt will
PM lock into place by itself but the deadbolt just six inches higher will
PM not unless I push hard on the top corner of the door. The space between
PM the doorframe and the door is larger on the top than the bottom. There
PM is a draft at the top but not at the bottom. This door has been fine for
PM 10 years. What could have caused this? How can I fix this?

The house shifted slightly, probably due to the cooler weather. We
have a similar problem here. Not sure why it suddenly happened after
ten years -- maybe there have been some shiftings over the years and
this is the first year the shift was sufficient to cause the door to
not latch. Was anything changed this summer, such as reroofing,
landscaping?

Nothing has changed. Maybe the hot one day, cold the next summer we had caused
the problem. I moved the doorknob plate back a bit and the deadbolt will lock
without any pushing but now the door opens too
easily, strong wind and dogs, when the deadbolt is open. The doorknob bolt fits
right but doesn't
seem to be long enough now because of the space between the door and the
doorframe. Any
suggestions?


The 'solution' here was to buy some ¬" wide x ¬" thick self-stick
insulation to go around part of the doorframe where the air leakage
occurs. I found if I went too far then the door would bind and not
close. There was still a draft at the upper corner so I applied a
second layer for about 2".


Thanks, I'll try it.