Your safety and security are jeopardized when a door won’t close or keeps opening on its own. You may need to fix more than the lock to keep doors shut. It’s possible that the door jam is warped. It’s possible that the hinges are drooping. It’s possible that the striking plate is slipping.
The information in this article can help you identify the cause of your door’s inability to close. You can always call a Toronto Locksmith if you are unable to complete the work yourself or prefer the trained hands of a professional.
Here are the most likely reasons why your door won't close:
1. Debris
The catch of the strike plate can collect all kinds of flotsam and jetsam. The catch hole might be partially blocked if wood or material from the door jam comes away. Examine the hole in the door jam where the latch should be landing while the door is open.
Strike plates in commercial and industrial settings may be purposely clogged with debris. This is tactic robbers employ to make a door not close correctly, allowing them to get access after normal business hours. This is something that prison guards are frequently confronted with from inmates.
Check to see if there is anything leaning against the door or caught between the door and the jam. Jackets put on coat racks behind a door might occasionally prevent it from closing completely.
When attempting to repair sliding door locks, keep an eye out for debris on the tracks. If there is too much material on the track, a sliding door can be drawn back. As a result, even if you can close the sliding door, it will not stay shut. The interval between reopenings may differ.
2. Tolerances at the Door
Check the apertures along the top, bottom, and sides of the door if it won’t close properly. Solid core and hollow core doors both have the potential to grow to the point where their gaps close and drag on the doorway.
Because hollow core interior doors use relatively little wood, they are less prone to this type of deterioration. The foundation of the house, on the other hand, can raise and modify any doorway tolerance. Adjustments to the hinges or strike are not recommended as a result of this alteration.
You may need to adjust the door itself if the foundation shifts, roots raise the earth, or the wood of the door jam expands. Look for the tightest tolerances around the corners of the door. Make a mark on the door to indicate how much of it has to be trimmed.
These issues are likely to increase with time, so whatever you’re doing to remedy the situation needs to be repeated on a regular basis. You should address the source of the problem rather than just focusing on the symptom of doorway tolerance for better home security.
3. Alignment of the Strike Plate
When a door won’t close, it’s usually due to a misalignment of the strike plate. Changes in doorway tolerances, as well as hinge alignment, can cause this problem. However, focusing solely on the strike plate will allow you to diagnose and correct the problem.
Special strike plates or deeper catch holes are required for some patented locks. If this is the case, the problem isn’t that the door won’t close, but that the lock won’t fully engage. This distinction is crucial since it ultimately determines the best option.
The door jamb can become weak and the door less secure if you over-adjust or replace the strike plate every time you change interior door knobs. When a door won’t stay shut, you don’t want to replace it with one that provides almost no security when shut.
The latch must fall into the catch of the strike plate to keep the doors closed. Examine how the latch aligns with the strike plate as you close the door. Although the spring-loaded latch on door knobs is not designed for physical security, you must keep doors closed when necessary.
4. Difficulty Removing a Stuck Door Latch
Make sure the latch is extended properly if the door continues to open. A stuck door latch may not fully extend into the striking plate’s catch. It might take you a few tries to get it out, but it should come out if you fiddle with the handle or press on the latch.
Apply door lock lubricant to the latch and cycle the device a few times for most sticky spring-loaded latches. The latch’s full retraction and extension is referred to as a cycle. The cycles should get increasingly smooth until the sticking is gone if the lubrication is effective.
The use of lubricant is not always the best option. The best technique to fix a stuck door latch depends on the situation you’re having. It is possible for the connection between the handle and latches to be completely broken, or for the latch to occasionally stick.
If a blocked latch is the cause of a door not staying closed, changing locks will remedy the problem. This is not the case if the door will not close for any other reason. It takes time to find a solution. Commercial door lock replacement is simple and efficient for offices and retail establishments.
5. Alignment of the Hinge
To examine the alignment of your hinges, first, open the door and push and pull it in different directions. If the door wobbles, one of the hinges is likely to be loose. See if you can fix the problem by tightening the hinge screws.
The problem with tightening these screws is that they strip the hole, causing it to expand and the hinges to sag furthermore over time. To mitigate this risk, you can replace the set screws with 3-inch screws that dig into the stud and improve front door security.
If the door does not wobble and the hinge screws are snug, but it still won’t close, you may be able to resolve the problem by tightening the hinges. Printer paper, cardboard, or other cuttable and compressible flat sheets can be used to make minor modifications.
Remove the hinge from the door. As you reinstall the door, stack or fold the sheets to the correct width and position them between the jam and the hinge. The more the sheet is thick, the more the door adjusts. To lift the door up, pack the bottom hinge, and use the top hinge to slide it down.
Final Thoughts
Instead of seeking up how to change a door knob when a door keeps opening, go through the troubleshooting process to see if the lock, strike plate, doorway, hinges, or other components are malfunctioning. You might discover that the best solution is unrelated to the lock.
Please contact us if you have any other questions about what to do if a door keeps popping open. And, if you’d like Matrix Locksmith to assist you with your problem, check to see whether we provide service in your region.
