This Door is Misbehaving

[Tom Bender]

We have a coat closet door that slowly swings shut as we are hanging coats. It's annoying. It fits in the frame nicely and the frame is not easy to adjust in the wall. The wall and frame lean back about 5/8" in 7ft. Any suggestions for improving this other than significant carpentry, drywall work and finish?

491556

[Tom M King]

Plumb and align the hinge barrels. Hopefully the jamb is plumb in the wall plane, or the hinge mortises will require some filling and deepening too.

[Zachary Hoyt]

If the hinges could be made to not work as smoothly it might take care of the problem. There would be an ideal amount of resistance that would be enough to keep it from closing by itself but not enough to make it hard to open and close intentionally. I wonder if there is any kind of hinge on the market that is made to have adjustable resistance. I haven't heard of one, but it seems plausible.

I ran into the same problem with the existing tool shed that came with the house I bought. It is a bit out of level and when I oiled the hinges so they didn't screech the door shuts itself. I'm waiting for them to get rusty again, but since there's a little porch it may take a while, since they don't get rained on directly.

[Mel Fulks]

Some just remove the middle pin , bend it a bit , and re-install. I have not tried it but I have one door that needs it .
If all efforts fail …there is always exorcism !

[Rich Engelhardt]

Mel got it.
Bend the middle oin.

[Brian Tymchak]

Interesting thread. I have 3 doors in my house that open/close on their own. 1 is due to the wall being out of plumb, by 1 1/4" over 9'. That wall is going to be rebuilt with the door being changed out for a fan-fold to cut down on door swing. The other 2 have jambs out of plumb.

[John K Jordan]

Some just remove the middle pin , bend it a bit , and re-install. I have not tried it but I have one door that needs it .
If all efforts fail …there is always exorcism !

A downstairs bathroom never closed on itself until I oiled the hinges one day. I thought about gumming up the hinges with something. Instead a hammer snd punch can adjust the friction.

Also, didn’t try it on this one but I’ve made hinges work smoother by loosening some screws and adjusting the hinges a bit while tightening. Might try loosening and tightening while “unadjusting” one or more hinges to ADD friction.

I do have a door I’d like to positively stay open when I push it open - I plan to mount a spring door stop with a small magnet embedded in the tip and mount a small steel striker plate (washer) on the door. And maybe the magnetic force will keep the spirits away…

The best thing, of course, and the biggest job is to remount the entire door. I’ve had to do that on some 14 and 16’ farm gates. A heavy gate that swings out if not held is a pain when managing horses, llamas, and donkeys waiting for the chance to go on a walkabout.

JKJ

[Mel Fulks]

Mel got it.
Bend the middle one And RICH got it! Nothing gets traction without a Second. Got some real skeptics here.

[Lee DeRaud]

I suppose jacking up one side of the house until the wall is plumb was too obvious...

[Jim Koepke]

The following method is usually used for aligning the gap between the jam and door but it has also worked for me on a door that wasn't plumb to keep it from swinging open or closed.

It uses shims made of ~1/4" strips of cardboard made from a cereal box.

491574

Placing a shim (or more) between the hinge and the door frame at side A will tend to widen a gap between the door and the jam across from the hinge. Placing a shim at B will tend to close the gap. I've used this in places to make a gap look even from top to bottom between a door and frame. It can also help to bring a door into plumb even if the frame is off.

It might take a combination of shims between the top and bottom hinges.

Shims can also be placed between a door and a hinge though none of my corrections were that far out of plumb or alignment.

jtk

[Dave Zellers]

Better than bending the pin is to remove a hinge and hammer the barrel enough so there is friction when the pin is driven in. Go slowly and test to prevent going too far. It works beautifully.

[Mel Fulks]

Better than bending the pin is to remove a hinge and hammer the barrel enough so there is friction when the pin is driven in. Go slowly and test to prevent going too far. It works beautifully.

I don’t doubt that you can do that , but how can it be better? It ain’t faster ! It sounds like an OCD thing , and I’m trying to NOT catch
that again ! As some great philosopher must have said, “ You can’t see around the bend going straight…
So don’t go look , just pick up the pay …
‘an write in in the book”.

[Dave Zellers]

It's better because you are improving the hinge by making it more precise. Those hinges have a lot of slop in them. Closing the barrel cleans that up.

I should add that the best way to do it is with the pin in place. Tighten the barrel around it.

[Mel Fulks]

Dave, thanks. Sounds like the difference is the hinges. Only had to do that procedure once. I bought solid brass hinges because the door
went between kitchen and living room . I always put “3 in One” oil on the pins, that and the soft real solid brass makes a tighter fit than
steel on steel, so that puts a little “spring in that step”. I said “always” , but I’m usually resting for years between “hangings”.

[glenn bradley]

Maybe this will help depending on hinge type . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48fFtKTGTEw

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Bending a hinge pin is a trick I am glad to learn about! We had a couple doors that I used a threaded rod and two nylock nuts in place of the pin.
We bought the only house we could afford in 1987. It was very broken up, crooked. and leaky. We got a 3rd mortgage and fixed every thing over the next 10 years, including a new foundation. Then we settled in and watched it sink back to being even more broken and crooked than when we started. The good news is that folks are buying these old junky houses for $200,000.00 or more, tearing them down and building new.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Better than bending the pin is to remove a hinge and hammer the barrel enough so there is friction when the pin is driven in. Go slowly and test to prevent going too far. It works beautifully.I never bother to remove the hinge. I just tap the barrel while it's on the door with the pin in it - if that's what it needs.
Other times, I tap the pin up about half and whup it with a hammer to bend it slightly.

Other times, I'll just tap it up about half give it a quarter turn and pound it back down.

What I always do whenever a hinge pin comes out even a tiny bit is to write on it with a #2 pencil. The graphite works better than oil and/or silicone and/or WD40. Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit is needed so use it real sparingly.