How to Fix an Exterior Door
When your exterior doors begin giving you problems, don’t worry about calling a professional contractor. You can save a lot of money and learn something new when you repair your exterior doors yourself. Most exterior door problems are repaired by fixing the hinges or jamb on your door.
Items Needed:
- Screwdriver
- New screws and hinges (if necessary)
- Matches (if necessary)
- Pry-bar
- Reciprocating saw
- Hammer
- Cold chisel
- Utility knife
- Nail
- Level
- Shims
- Open your door all the way so you have room to work and tighten all of the screws on your hinges with a screwdriver.
- Exchange any old rusty or stripped screws for new ones. If your screws won’t go back into their holes you may need to install screws that are thicker and longer. You can also refill the hole by breaking the end off a matchstick and placing it inside the hole. This process may give your screw something to grab on to.
- Open and close your doors a few times after replacing all the screws in your hinges to see how it operates. If it works smoothly, great work. If not, then you may need to realign your door’s jamb.
- Take your door casing off your frame with your pry-bar. You’ll need to pull your frame out from your wall and expose a gap located in between your door’s jamb and its frame.
- Use a reciprocating saw to cut away those nails holding your jamb to your frame.
- Use a hammer and a cold chisel to knock out all the old shims.
- Take the screws out of the threshold on your door.
- Cut away any remaining old caulking around your threshold’s edge using a utility knife.
- Center your jamb header inside your frame.
- Wedge some shims between your jamb header and your frame located over your hinge side jamb. This will hold it steady.
- Hammer a nail up into your header, shims and into your frame.
- Put a level on your hinge side jam’s edge and adjust it until the bubble sits in the center of your level.
- Wedge some shims behind your top and bottom corners and the middle of your jamb on the hinge side to keep it level.
- Fasten it firmly by hammering a nail through your jamb, shims and into your frame.
- Continue to level, shim and nail on your jamb on the knob side. Place some shims on your top and bottom corners and some just below your latch.
- Put all the screws back in your door’s threshold.
- Align your door casing with your door’s frame. Use your hammer to gently hammer all your nails in their place, and your door should be as good as new.