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  • Do heavy wooden front doors warp?

    Mine has started not open jng easily and seems to catch on the bottom edge and where the lock mechanism is, meaning it is too tight a fit to easily unlock with the key from outside.

    To make this better I have shifted the lock housing in the frame back a bit but now can't do the second deadlock up.

    All in all, it seems o have warped or twisted somehow.

    How can I best diagnose this and who should I speak to about fixing it? Or is it new door time?

  • How old is the door? Are the hinges worn/loose, so the door has dropped?

  • Open door and close until it's just ajar by a few mm. Is the gap even from top to bottom when looking face-on and when looking sideways along the edge of the door?

    If it's still hanging straight and has just swolen at the bottom, then you can just run a sheet of sandpaper underneath until it runs freely.

  • Wood's always on the move due to changes in RH.

    Get a block plane and remove wood where it's catching. Don't take off too much, but just enough to make it open and close nicely.

  • Ours becomes almost unusable twice a year with our crazy dry/wet and hot/cold cycles. Since our back porch is not built on a proper foundation and the door is along the side as opposed to the end, the sagging and rising of it regularly squeezes and gaps the door frame. I’ve planed the door over the years and added the most substantial weather stripping around. I find during dry spells (not during winter though obviously) if I strategically water the periphery of the porch it makes a big difference.

  • Should have replied to you in the last comment! It's common for doors to warp. They are exposed to different climates inside and out so the wood responds by warping, they are also set in frames which move with the house. If the dry weather has caused your house to move a bit that could be part of the problem.

    It's a carpenter/joiners job but it usually helps to have them doing more than just that. It takes a little thinking about how best to fix it and having someone with a sharp set of planes definitely helps. If I'm working somewhere and notice the front door has a problem I usually work out how to fix it while I'm coming and going through it.

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