The Handy Blog

Often times frequently used doors and cabinets can get loose. This is usually due to the screws wearing the holes out from all the traffic they receive. There is a simple solution to these loose hinges. You can take the door or cabinet off and repair the damage with a few simple tools.

As can be seen in this picture from left to right I have a box cutter, a pair of dikes (Cutting pliers), a Phillips-head screwdriver, a flat-head screwdriver, a box of toothpicks, some long screws, and a bottle of wood glue. I have rounded toothpicks here, but I find that flat toothpicks work better.

You might not need all of these, as I have only added some of them as substitutes for others. The box cutter and the dikes do the same thing. Likewise, the Phillips and Flat screwdrivers are for those types of screws. The longer screws are sort of an easier way out, but often don’t look right; as such, I have only added them in this group to give you another option.

How about we get right down to repairing that loose screw on the door or cabinet hinge.

If you look carefully at this picture you will notice that the door is hanging too far over to the right. This is caused by the top left hinge being loose.

Here is a better picture of the actual hinge causing the problem. As you can see from this picture there is a gap between where the hinge is and where the hinge should be. This gap is caused by the screws being loose due to a worn out frame.

This is a picture of the problematic hinge, and though it is hard to see from this picture, the hinge is definitely loose. When you put pressure on the door you can see the hinge move.

The first thing you will need to do for this repair is to remove the door. Depending on how heavy the door is you might need a helper for this job. I like to leave one screw per hinge and then after all but the one per hinge are out I remove the last middle hinge, then the last lower hinge, and then the last top hinge. If you must do this job by yourself you can put newspaper, books, or wood under the door to help support the door.

Take the screws and set them out of the way where they will not get kicked or lost. I can’t tell you how many times I have lost screws due to failure of this one simple step.

This is where the long screws come in. If you don’t want to finish this process after reading through it then you can try to just add some longer screws. Most all door frames have a 2″x4″ behind them that you can usually catch with a 2″-3″ screw. Whenever I install an exterior interior door I use longer screws in order to make the home more secure from break-ins. If this is the route you would like to go then simply remove one screw at a time on the hinge and replace it with a long screw. In some cases you may need to drill a pilot hole in the 2″x4″ before you put the screw in. It really depends on the thickness of the screws you are using and the age of the house. A good rule of thumb here is, “When in doubt, drill a pilot hole.”

So, back on with it then.

Now you will want to put a little wood glue on a piece of cardboard or a paper plate so that you can roll the toothpicks around in it.

Place the toothpicks in the wood glue so that half of their length is covered with glue. Spin them around once to make sure that you get a good coating of glue on them.

Now you can simply stick the toothpicks into the worn out holes in the frame. I like to get enough of them into place so that there is not room for any more. In other words I like to make sure that they are snug. Repeat this process for all the holes. You can even do this for the holes that were not worn out if you want to take preventative measures.

Once you are finished it should look something like this.

Here is where the dikes or box cutter come in. Make sure to be careful here - especially if you use a box cutter. Trim the toothpicks off at the edge of the frame. They should be pretty much flush with the surface when you are done.

This is what it should look like when you are done clipping. You can that I am holding the pieces of the toothpicks that I clipped off in this picture.

You can choose to let it dry for a little while, all night, or not at all. I usually just replace the door and hinges right away. If you put the door back on right away it will put pressure on the toothpicks and make them adhere better to the frame once dry. The best wood and glue connection is when there is little room for glue and lots of touching wood to wood.

This is the door hinge back in place.

If you scroll back up the the first picture of this hinge you will notice that there was a gap of almost a 1/4 of an inch that is now gone.

From this picture you can see that the top right of the door is now aligning properly with the door frame.

And now you have your finished product.

Congratulations! You have just repaired your door. You have saved yourself the cost of a new door and frame, not to mention the labor.

I hope this guide was helpful to you!

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 24th, 2008 at 11:20 am and is filed under Doors and Hinges. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.