How to Fix a Sticking or Sagging Interior Door

A door that rubs at the top corner, won’t latch, or has to be shoved closed every August is one of the most common complaints in St. Louis homes. Our humid summers swell wood doors and frames, dry winter heat shrinks them back, and over the years hinge screws work loose and houses settle a little. The fix is rarely a new door. In most cases a screwdriver, a few longer screws and some careful observation will have it swinging and latching smoothly again.

Difficulty: Beginner to intermediate · Time: 30 minutes to 2 hours

Tools and materials

Screwdrivers (Phillips and flat) and a drill/driver
3 inch wood screws (#9 or #10) in a finish that matches your hinges
Thin cardboard or commercial hinge shims
Pencil, a dollar bill or thin paper for testing
Hand plane or power planer, and a sanding block with 80 and 120 grit paper
Utility knife, chisel
Primer and paint, or clear finish, to seal raw edges
Wood toothpicks or golf tees and wood glue for stripped screw holes
A helper is handy for removing and re-hanging a door

Step 1: Diagnose where it’s rubbing

Close the door slowly and watch the gap between the door and the frame. On a properly hung door, the gap (the “reveal”) is even, roughly 1/8 inch along the top and both sides. Look for:

A gap that’s wide at the top hinge side and tight at the top latch side. The door is sagging, almost always from loose top hinge screws.
Shiny worn paint along an edge, which shows exactly where it rubs.
A latch that hits above or below the strike plate. The door has sagged or the frame has shifted.

Slide a dollar bill or a piece of paper around the closed door. Where it binds, that’s your contact point. Mark it lightly with a pencil.

Step 2: Tighten the hinge screws

Open the door and check every hinge screw, on both the door and the jamb. Loose screws are the cause of most sagging doors. Tighten them by hand so you don’t strip the holes. If a screw spins without tightening, the hole is stripped. Pull the screw, fill the hole with wood toothpicks or a golf tee dipped in wood glue, snap them off flush, let it set, then drive the screw back in.

Step 3: Drive a long screw into the framing

This is the trick that fixes most sagging doors for good. Hinge screws that come with a door are usually only 3/4 to 1 inch long, so they only grab the thin door jamb, not the wall framing behind it. Remove one screw from the top hinge on the jamb side, preferably the one closest to the doorstop, and replace it with a 3 inch screw. As it bites into the stud behind the jamb, it pulls the whole top of the door frame back toward the hinge side and lifts the latch corner of the door. Snug it gradually and check the gap as you go; overtightening can bow the jamb. Often this single screw solves the problem completely.

If the door is rubbing on the hinge side instead, a long screw in the bottom hinge can pull that corner over. Experiment one screw at a time.

Step 4: Shim a hinge

If the latch side is rubbing at the bottom, or the door is binding against the hinge-side jamb, shimming can shift the door’s angle. Loosen the hinge leaf on the jamb, slip a piece of thin cardboard (a cereal box works) behind it, and retighten. Shimming behind the top hinge tips the top of the door toward the latch side; shimming behind the bottom hinge does the opposite. Add one layer at a time and test.

Step 5: Check the strike plate

If the door closes but won’t latch, look at the latch and strike plate. Small misalignments can be fixed by filing the opening in the strike plate slightly larger with a metal file. For bigger shifts, move the strike plate up or down: chisel the mortise a little longer, reposition the plate and fill the old screw holes.

Step 6: Plane or sand the edge (last resort)

If adjustments don’t solve it, you may need to remove a little wood. Do this during the humid part of the year if you can, when the door is at its biggest; plane it in January and it may have a big gap by July.

Mark the high spot. With the door closed, scribe a pencil line where it rubs.
Remove the door. Tap the hinge pins out from the bottom with a screwdriver and hammer, starting with the bottom hinge, and lift the door off with a helper.
Plane toward the line. Clamp or brace the door on edge. Plane from the edges toward the middle so you don’t split the corners, removing only what you need, often just 1/16 inch. For a small rub, sanding with 80 grit on a block may be enough. Bevel the latch edge slightly (about 3 degrees) toward the stop side so it clears the jamb as it swings.
Seal the raw wood. This step matters. Bare wood absorbs moisture fast and will swell again. Prime and paint or apply finish to every edge you planed, including the top and bottom if you trimmed them.
Re-hang and test.

A caution for older homes: if your house was built before 1978, the paint on doors and trim may contain lead. Planing or sanding releases lead dust. Test first, and if it’s positive, follow lead-safe work practices or have a certified renovator do it.

Mistakes to avoid

Planing first. Most sticking doors are fixed by tightening screws. Once wood is removed, you can’t put it back.
Leaving the edge unsealed.
Overtightening long screws and bowing the jamb.
Ignoring a pattern. If several doors in the house started sticking at the same time, the cause is likely in the structure, not the doors.

When to call a pro

Call a contractor if doors throughout the house are suddenly out of square, if you see new diagonal cracks in drywall above door corners, if floors have started sloping, or if the jamb is split or rotted. Those can be signs of foundation settlement, framing problems or moisture damage that need a professional assessment. If the door itself is warped, delaminating or just worn out, replacing it with a prehung unit is often the cleaner answer. RossBuilt replaces interior and exterior doors through our windows and doors services and handles trim and carpentry as part of our interior remodeling work.

Rather have it done for you? RossBuilt Construction serves the St. Louis metro. Request a free estimate or call 636-380-2574.