DIY interior door repair

Recommendation points

• Types of faults and defects
• How to remove and repair a door leaf
• Repair and replacement of hinges
• Repair and replacement of platbands
• How to repair a door frame

You can repair the interior door with your own hands. The biggest difficulty that can lie in wait for a home craftsman is dismantling the door leaf and correcting the geometry of the frame. Other types of work are cosmetic in nature, do not require professional skills and tools.

Types of faults and defects

All types of faults or defects in interior doors can be divided into two large classes: damaged appearance and malfunctioning.

In the first case, restoration (restoration) of the decorative coating will be required. The methods of such repairs have the same technology as for cabinet wooden furniture..

In the second case, the nature of the faults can have a different manifestation:

• the door sags and “clings” to the floor covering;
• an uneven gap around the perimeter of the vestibule (on one side there is a gap, on the other – the door leaf rubs against the frame);
• the door is not fixed in a half-open position (it closes or opens itself);
• latch lock does not work well, etc..

The reasons for malfunctioning can be subjective or objective:

• installation errors;
• low-quality or weak hinges for a heavy door leaf;
• wear of the hinges or loosening of their fastenings;
• poor fixation of the door frame in the opening;
• building shrinkage.

If the hinges are “to blame”, then the repair is easy. It is much more difficult to correct installation errors or eliminate the consequences of shrinkage – in most cases, you will have to dismantle and reinstall not only the canvas, but also the door frame.

How to remove and repair a door leaf

Small scratches in the paintwork of a wooden or veneered door can be removed without removing the door leaf. It is enough to choose a shade of paint to match (for example, for artwork) and make local staining on the trace of the scratch. From above this area is varnished (if the door is varnished) and polished.

To eliminate serious and extensive defects in the decorative coating of the door leaf, it must be removed. Do this by unscrewing the screws securing the hinges to the door frame.

Advice! Dismantling is more convenient if you first remove the platbands, because their decorative coating usually suffers. And the restoration of the canvas and platbands, so that they do not differ in color, must be carried out simultaneously.

Then the door is placed on a table (or workbench) and the following procedures are performed:

• degrease the surface (oil stains have a bad effect on the adhesion of repair compounds and canvas material);
• clean the entire surface with P60-P80 grit sandpaper (“matt”);
• putty deep scratches, cracks and chips (it is better when the putty is tinted);
• dried;
• grind (start with sandpaper P100-P120, finish with P200-P240);
• dedust;
• primed;
• apply a finishing layer (varnish, one-stage paint for wood or “base” + varnish).

Repair and replacement of hinges

The simplest reason for the door sagging is fastening with short screws or a large diameter of holes for them drilled in the canvas and frame. In this case, it is necessary to replace the screws with longer ones (if the thickness of the box and the wall material allows) or thicker ones (if the diameter of the holes in the hinge allows). In the second case, you can insert chopiki into the holes by dipping them into PVA glue.

It may also be that two hinges are not enough to withstand the load from a heavy door. This is usually noticeable by the state of the upper attachment points – it is in this place that the weight of the door leaf “works for separation.” The elimination method is simple – an additional hinge is cut in at the top (by the way, this installation method is typical for most modern doors made of solid wood or laminated MDF).

Weak or broken hinges must be replaced with new ones.

Repair and replacement of platbands

The repair of the decorative coating of the platbands is carried out according to the same rules as the door leaf.

The most difficult stage is to remove the platbands without damaging them. Modern products made of solid wood, veneer wood and laminated MDF are fastened to screws (and mask the attachment points) or to a finishing furniture nail (which has practically no head). It is not difficult to remove them – you need to find and unscrew the screws or, slightly squeezing the platband from the box (through the gap on the side of the wall), pull out the nails with pliers.

Platbands of old doors (with several layers of paint) are almost impossible to remove without damage. But if this succeeds, then we must take into account that their cleaning and grinding will take a long time. Better to put new ones instead.

How to repair a door frame

Redecoration of the door frame is carried out “in place”. To putty and mask scratches in a small area of ​​the visible part of the box, you should not remove it.

One of the simplest types of repairs is the adjustment of the latch closure. A common defect is rubbing the “tongue” of the lock on the end plate on the box. This can be even with minor and imperceptible violations of the geometry (canvas or opening), slight sagging of the door, after repair or replacement of hinges. Sometimes it is enough a few light blows with a hammer on the butt end in the window of the record from the “rubbing” side. A more radical method is to remove the plate, increase (if necessary) the dimensions of the recess in the box, repair the old mounting holes, reinstall the plate.

An incorrectly or poorly installed box, as well as the shrinkage of the house, which led to deformation of the geometry of the doorway, will require dismantling and re-installing the door. If the dismantling work is carried out carefully and accurately, then all the elements of the interior door (box, canvas, platbands) can be reinstalled.

Note! The removed platbands open the assembly seam, and the hinges and end plate on the box “hide” the places of its attachment with anchor bolts or self-tapping screws in the opening.

After the assembly seam is cleaned, unscrew the fasteners and remove the box.

If the box is fixed in the opening only with polyurethane foam, then dismantling is easier.

But it also happens that the anchor bolts cannot be twisted. We’ll have to cut them off with a grinder, and move the box a little so that the new attachment points do not fall on the old.

Then the door frame is reinstalled, observing the requirements for levels in the vertical and horizontal planes, the size of the gaps between the leaf and the frame. At the bottom, leave a gap between the door leaf and the floor covering (or threshold) sufficient for natural supply and exhaust ventilation.

At the last stage, the door is hung, its functioning is checked, the end plate of the latch lock and platbands are attached.