doors in 100+ year old house don't shut
 

Hello. I live in an old house, built around 1880. The previous owners
repaired and renovated extensively, but nothing in the house is square.
The interior doors do not latch, or even stick closed. As far as I
can tell, there are two reasons for this.

First, as I said before, nothing is square. Most of the doors (big,
heavy, 8' tall solid wood) don't even reach the strike plate... they're
off by 1/4" or more. I have a feeling that none of the doors are
matched with their original frames, and perhaps the components of the
frames may have been mixed and matched.

The second problem is that the doors are loose. By this, I mean that I
can lift up on the free end of the door a little bit. This movement
seems to come from within the hinge. The hinges otherwise seem to be
secu they are screwed in tightly to both the jamb and the door.

So it seems like I have my work cut out for me if I want doors that
shut all the way. Short of tearing out the frames and rehanging them
properly and then repairing damage to the surrounding wall, is there
anything I can do? I was thinking about attaching a 1/8"-1/4" thick
strip of wood to the inside of the frame to fill the gap. It seems
like this might work until I can hire someone to really fix it. I
thought I would check here for any good advice or alternate solutions.

I'm not too worried about maintainin historical integrity, if there's
any left. However, new prehung doors would look out of place.

Thanks for reading.

Joseph

Joseph O'Brien wrote:
Hello. I live in an old house, built around 1880. The previous owners
repaired and renovated extensively, but nothing in the house is square.
The interior doors do not latch, or even stick closed. As far as I
can tell, there are two reasons for this.

First, as I said before, nothing is square. Most of the doors (big,
heavy, 8' tall solid wood) don't even reach the strike plate... they're
off by 1/4" or more. I have a feeling that none of the doors are
matched with their original frames, and perhaps the components of the
frames may have been mixed and matched.

The second problem is that the doors are loose. By this, I mean that I
can lift up on the free end of the door a little bit. This movement
seems to come from within the hinge. The hinges otherwise seem to be
secu they are screwed in tightly to both the jamb and the door.

So it seems like I have my work cut out for me if I want doors that
shut all the way. Short of tearing out the frames and rehanging them
properly and then repairing damage to the surrounding wall, is there
anything I can do? I was thinking about attaching a 1/8"-1/4" thick
strip of wood to the inside of the frame to fill the gap. It seems
like this might work until I can hire someone to really fix it. I
thought I would check here for any good advice or alternate solutions.

I'm not too worried about maintainin historical integrity, if there's
any left. However, new prehung doors would look out of place.

Thanks for reading.

Joseph

It should be fixable without tearing out the jams.

Hinges. Sounds like the hinge pins are loose. It could be the hinge
pins themselves are the wrong size for the hinges. Take one and see if
you can find a slightly larger size. Short of that it sounds like you
will have to replace the hinges.

Door not closing. Move the striker, move the stops. If you can pull on
the door and make it fit the striker, something on the hinge side may
need planeing or a stop is mispositioned.

Harry K

"Joseph O'Brien" wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello. I live in an old house, built around 1880. The previous owners
repaired and renovated extensively, but nothing in the house is square.
The interior doors do not latch, or even stick closed. As far as I
can tell, there are two reasons for this.

it's possible that part of the house is beginning to sag and you might have
to jack it from beneath. common problem in older houses.

Harry,

Thanks for your advice. Forgive my ignorance, but is the stop part of
the frame just behind the strike plate? I would assume so, since it's
what "stops" the door from swinging through the frame to the other
side.

You're right about the hinge pins... some of them are too big, so they
don't go all the way through. Others are too narrow. What a mess.

Thanks,
Joseph.

Joseph O'Brien wrote:
Harry,

Thanks for your advice. Forgive my ignorance, but is the stop part of
the frame just behind the strike plate? I would assume so, since it's
what "stops" the door from swinging through the frame to the other
side.

You're right about the hinge pins... some of them are too big, so they
don't go all the way through. Others are too narrow. What a mess.

Thanks,
Joseph.

Yes, the stops are the narrow strips of wood, usually about 1/2" thick
by about 2" wide that the door butts up to when closed.

The fun in an old house is in fixing things like this. First thing is
to realize that you can't make things fit plumb and square, they have
to mated to the house as it stands. If a wall is badly out of plumb,
so be it, you just shim or scribe things to fit as needed.

Harry K