Doors

dougal

None of the doors in my house close properly!
They either get jammed when 90% of the way shut or the catch doesn't close close properly and they open when you walk past.
What sort of tools would I need to tackle this?
I am assuming I will need to take the doors down to sort out the level.

Borzoi

New house or old house?

Are the doors warped (curved)? Or is it that they just don't catch the reciever plate?

dougal

Newish house.

Both problems really. The ones that close far enough don't catch right in the receiver plate.
The others could be slightly warped they get jammed at the bottom with the saddle.

seamus

Could be some problems with dampness - doors, being wood, tend to expand when they get damp, so many outside doors are hung with quite a bit of space around the edges to allow for expansion in winter and contraction in summer. Seeing as these are inside doors, this shouldn't be happening. Have the doors always been like this - at least since you've bought the house, or is it a recent thing?

If it's been like this since you bought the house, chances are, the person who owned it before you (or indeed the builders), put up the doors themselves and made a balls of it. The jamming bit is easy to solve. Pop the door off and use a plane to trim of slivers of wood until it fits properly. If the doors aren't catching properly - there could be two problems - the door isn't wide enough, or the lock/receiver is placed too far into the wood. Either way, get a cabinetmaker/carpenter out to sort it - hanging doors is far harder than it looks.......

If it's only a recent thing, this points to either problems with dampness, or as someone said, warping. The latter is much more serious, as it's probably due to structural problems.......

dougal

They have always been like this - so I'd say that they are hung wrong.
I think I'll have a go at planing one of them this weekend and if it's too much hassle I'll get the pro's in.

Borzoi

What probably happened, given that it's a newish house, is that whoever bought the house from the builders moved in and whacked on the central heating. Unfortunately, the doors having been left in ambient condintions for a while have soaked up moisture. Now they get rapdidly dried by the heating and they warp.

Only solution is Seamus suggested, a plane for top and bottom, and look at the receiver plates, careful use of a chisel could solve that problem.

CYC

If your house is newish, chances are you have pretty standard doors.

In most of them, the receiver plate has 2 small catches which can be simply pushed outward a little to solve your problem of doors not closing properly (or open at the first sign of a breeze). All you will need is a screwdriver or something like it to pull gently the catches out. Just a little will do, you don't want to over do it and the door itself rubs against it :-)

I hope this is clear enough you can do it yourself at no expanse.

CYC