It's so easy: fix your misaligned door and jammed locks

Keywords: deadbolt / door latch misalignment, door gap

It's not even New Year resolution because I did it.

My entry door lock jammed because a plastic component inside chipped off.  I wanted to replace it long ago.  But either I have to change all the locks, re-key the new lock, or carry two keys.

Worse, my entry lock has a deadbolt and lock in one piece.  There is no obvious replacement in the local hardware stores.  I can do away with the deadbolt because I have another separate one.

Without direct replacement, I hate to repaint the door.  I would have replaced the door if the dimension is standard.  A beautiful lock on a beaten old door isn't sensible.

There is a new smartkey system that you can rekey in no time.  I don't know if it will work for my old key.  Anyway, I found out that it's easily breakable, at least if you follow the instructions in Youtube.

At the end, I fixed the lock by stuffing strips from cardboards into it.  That limits the trajectory of the broken plastic piece so it won't run off the rails.  It's not a security risk.  It just won't jam.

The bigger problem is the door.  It's heavy, in bad shape near the bottom due to weather, and badly misaligned that you can feel the chill when there is wind.

I always thought it's a two men job at least for the realignment.  And you have to be precise - need good power tools to drill precision holes next to old holes, which is rather impossible.

I found out that I was totally wrong when I tried out some of the instructions on the Internet, which tell me to use index cards or cardboard strips to fix alignments.  I wasn't hoping much but try it anyway.  It's so easy and let me explain.

You don't need to take out all the hinges.  You don't need to drill new holes.  You don't need help.  It takes may be 5 minutes.  No more wind blowing from outside the front door.  No more enlarging the deadbolt strike hole again and again.

Typically an old door like to "fall" down.  At the opening SIDE of the door, there will be a gap near the bottom.  The gap will be larger at the bottom than at the top.  There will be gaps at the top and bottom but that will be confusing you.  Just look at the side of the door, and not the hinged side.

All you need to do is to unscrew some of the screws at the bottom hinge and screw them back, plus some trivial adjustments.   5 minutes or less.

First check if all the screws in all the hinges are tight.  Replace any broken screws or loose screws with slightly larger sizes.  You may not need to do anything else.  Otherwise go on.

Open the door and support the door with stack of wooden shims at the opening corner. 

Unscrew only the bottom hinge, and only the screws attached to the door, NOT the door frame.  It should be easy to unscrew screws in an old wooden door.  No power tools needed.  Just be careful not to break the old screws.

Pry the hinge from the door using a screw driver.  It should be easy unless you don't want any minute scratches on your old door.

If you can feel wind through the gaps, and deadbolts cannot get into the strikes, use thin pizza boxes in the following.  For lesser misalignment, use index cards or nothing at all.  For anything, you can always use two stacked together.

Cut the cardboard or index card the same size as the hinge plate on the door.  It does not need to be precise as long as it can fit under the hinge plate and cover most of it.  Just cut with scissor free hand.

Put the strip of cardboard under the hinge plate, and screw the hinge plate back as it was.

You door is fixed.  If you still have significant gaps, use thicker materials or two of the same.  If you cannot close the door, use thinner materials.

That's it.  Why nobody told me since 10 years ago?

Update: The cardboard filler plate got compressed and I need to replace it every few months to a year or so. Also, the required thickness seems to be increasing and I need to use two cardboard thick and them some.

I thought of using hard plastic or metal instead but you need to saw, drill to match the hinge. The desired thickness is hard to match.

It's not a bad method nor it fails totally, but I have tried other usually recommended method such as longer screws to pull closer to the door jam. It's hard work and doesn't work that easy.

At the end I bought a wood chisel to enlarge the holes on the door jam so the locks can fit in.  I have a oscillator tool to cut out the raw necessary shape before that. It's a relative quick fix to have a few years of a smooth locking door, and that's not bad.

The door may be weaken a bit but many doors and locks can be opened by a hard kick.