There Isn’t much that is more annoying than the door that suddenly doesn’t want to latch any more. Over time gravity gets the best of all of us and your house is no exception. Whether it is from your house settling over time or just poor craftsmanship, our doors can suddenly stop latching like they used to. The fix for this is simple and we are going to discuss several options for fixing this.
First of all, you need to look at your hinges. I know this seems counter-intuitive because it seems to be the latch side that isn’t working. But the hinges are usually the culprit in these cases. Check your hinges to see if there seems to be a lot of play in how securely they are holding the door to the frame. Many of the screws used to hold the hinges in place are fairly short and over time either loosen up or strip out altogether. Often, just tightening the screws is enough to lift the latch back into it’s original place. Almost always the door doesn’t latch because the latch has sagged below the hole in the latch plate. If you need to find out if this is the case, put a little caulk or glue on the bottom of the latch and then close the door so it marks the latch plate and you can see how much the door has sagged.
If tightening the screws doesn’t fix the problem. You might want to try replacing the short screws in the top hinge to the door frame with longer screws that will go through the door jamb and into the actual wood frame around the door. This works because you are sucking the door jamb tighter against the door frame, thus lifting the door up a fraction of an inch, which might be enough to pull the latch into alignment with the latch plate.
If this doesn’t completely solve the problem, you might be able to adjust the latch plate a little to lower it by either loosening the screws and forcing the latch plate down while you rescrew it in. Sometimes this doesn’t work because the actual hole in the wood frame doesn’t move when you do this and the wood itself will hold the latch from latching. If this is the case, you might be able to shave a small amount of the wood off with a file or small wood chisel before putting the latch plate back on.
Finally, if this doesn’t work, we have the option of adding shims to the bottom hinge to lift the door a little bit and thus lift the latch. If the door has three hinges, you may have to do the same thing with the middle hinge too. However, you have to make sure you have enough clearance at the top and sides of the door to do this, or you might be trading a door that doesn’t latch with a door that sticks.
If you don’t want to try this, you could always give us a call and we would be happy to come and quote the cost to fix the door for you. We know DIY isn’t for everyone.
