I know, a serious post title. Whatever next?

After replacing the living room floor (which I’ll post about later this week) we found that the front door stuck when you opened it fully. The door’s been a bit of a pain since we moved in, as it needs a good slam to close. Then the type of lock is a newfangled thing that we’re not used to. So this was enough to spur me into action.

I looked up adjusting the uPVC door. Amid loads of really unhelpful advice and confusing explanations I found two forums which made it really clear. Thanks, community.screwfix.com and mybuilder.com.

You can adjust vertically and horizontally. So if your door has a gap at the top and scrapes along the floor, you need to jack it up. If you have a gap down one side or your lock is too tight you’ll want to move it sideways. When there are three hinges the combination of adjustment options gives you a fair bit of control.

Our door tilted to the right at the top, which means when it swings open the lock side of the door hits the floor before the rest of the bottom of the door. You can see the gap between the door and the frame is wider at the top than at the bottom. To straighten the door I needed to tighten on the horizontal. The way you do that is by turning the screw that sits on the side of the hinge. In my case it was a clockwise to tighten, as it should be. Tighty righty, loosey lefty.

Different types of hinges and different manufacturers offer different adjustment options. Some have adjustments within the pin itself. In that case you need to pop the cap off the top of the hinge and use a screwdriver to lift/lower the door on the pin. Ours only has the hex screw set into the right of the hinge. The pin isn’t adjustable.

So, allen key in hand, I adjusted the top hinge, which was clearly the culprit, and then tightened the middle hinge a little, as advised, to keep the door straight. We tested the door and adjusted bit by bit until the door stopped sticking on the floor when it was fully open and the gap between the door and frame was even all the way down.

booyaa locked himself out and let himself in again to test that my changes hadn’t affected the locking mechanism (which can happen, if you move the door the lock doesn’t line up the same as it used to) and – bonus! – you don’t need to slam the door to close it anymore. I was so happy. I patted myself on the back and demanded booyaa do the same.