Door hanging.

Poststructural Pub
1

Anybody here have any advice on how to hang a door.

My daughter needs a new outside door on her mobile home.
The new door was too tall. The guy who was supposed to put it on built a little crappy frame and left it sitting and hadn’t shown up for three days.
We decided that it would be a simple matter to cut the door down to the right height and put it in.
The door is the right height now but we spent two frustrating hours trying to get the hinges attached so they would line up. On the first try we had the door the right elevation but it wouldn’t close.. It appeared we had the corner of the hinge pushed too close to the door. So we spent forever getting them lined up just like the old door but then it was too low. So we tried again and it was too high.
We basically tried to eyeball it. Perhaps that was the problem.
Any suggestions?

2

Improve your odds. Hire a professional with tools.

3

You’ll need a lot of rope. The difficult part is finding the neck.

4

:laughing: :laughing: You forgot the drumroll.

I’ll take the first suggestion. It’ll cost more but be far less painful in the long run.

5

parum pum, CRASH!

6

I hang doors, and have for years, on all the houses I build. But I’ve never hung one on a manufactured (mobile) home. The original door may be metal, or if the home is newer–it may be a standard wooden one (or viny). The sides of the door frame are called jambs, the top piece the header. If your guy put together a new frame that didn’t come with the door (neither the door or the jamb has been routed out, ie, pre-gouged), then you have to trace the hinges onto both the door and the jamb while the door is temporarily set in place.

I realize you are beyond this point, but here’s the steps anyway just so you can understand why it’s not working. Nothing like a demonstration, but here it is in a nutshell, using as few words as I know how:

To do this, one method would have you install the frame in the wall first and secure it so it’s perfectly square and level (be sure and seal the plate at the bottem so bugs and weather don’t come in). After the frame has been secured in place, you’d cut the door to fit, leaving aprox. 1/16" clearance on the top and sides. The door probably needs a weather strip of some kind mounted on the base first so it seals against the threshold. After that is on, you’d set the door in the frame and take a hinge and hold it up where you’d like it and mark both the door and the jamb with a knife blade (or fine pencil). Most hinges are about 12" down from the top and up from the bottom, with a third hinge somewhere in the middle. After you mark the hinge horizontally, you take the door out and mark the hinges vertically, leaving some wood at the back edge, approx. 1/4" or more. After you’ve marked everything you’d probably chisel the section out or use a router if you have a jig. Sounds like this was the problem…not leaving some wood on the jamb beside the back edge of the hinge.

The second method would have you pre-hang the door before you install it in the wall, ie, make the door and frame one unit—hinges attached to both. You install the frame and door all in one operation. That’s a little easier, but tricky. The frame has to be installed so that the door shuts properly and lines up with the edges. Also the opening in the wall has to be perfectly level and square. Usually the opening is ½" wider overall than the frame and the space is filled up with shingles where the nails and screws go.

Final adjustments, and fixing a door that doesn’t line up or close properly: if both the door and the jamb were pre-gouged, so the hinges line up right, and you cut off perhaps 1/8" or more off the bottom or top of the door, then the two will be off that much and the door will be too tight at one end (top or bottom) and leaving a large gap at the other. If you had the door at the right elevation but it wouldn’t close, that must mean there was either no clearance btween the door and the jambs, or the door and the header or threshold. Or, it could mean the the bolt doesn’t line up with the hole in the plate, or it could mean that the jamb on the hinge side wasn’t installed with the wedges tapering with the closing direction (or warped by screwing the jamb to the wall so that it angled against the flow of the closing direction).

In any case, If you cut off 1/8" from the top or bottom, you have to chisel out 1/8" off the top or bottom of the pre-cut gouged area of the jamb so the door once again matches the jamb. If this is close, the hinges are screwed on and everything, but the door still doesn’t close because the closing edge of the door is too tight, try screwing the hinge side of the jamb to the wall a little tighter/closer…as this will loosen up the other side. If the door is to tight at the top or bottom (on one side), tighten the jamb to the wall so that it loosens up the problem area at the opposite end. If the door won’t close because the bolt won’t fit into the plate hole propertly, change the plate and gouge out the hole bigger (or file the edge of the plate where the problem is). Be sure and plug all the old screw holes with wood before trying to make new ones in the same area.

Details, details!! As you can see, I need more details to really address the problem. And sometimes there is no answer if the door or jamb is warped,or if the bolt holes are drilled wrong. Good luck! (this probably didn’t help, right?)

7

Thanks Lorenzo. I’ve copied and pasted that whole bit for future reference.

I got the door on yesterday using the current frame. Our problem was trying to eyeball where the hinges lined up. I knew the door fit because I could manually put it in place with the hinges attached to the jamb. The cut out sections didn’t quite match so I chiseled them out on the door.
This time I did basically as you said. I marked where the hinges lined up with the door. Then I took the hinges off the jamb and put them on the door. It was much easier trying to line up the door with the already drilled holes in the jamb then visa versa. It works fine now. I had to gouge a new hole for the door latch and that works better then the old one.

Thanks for your help.

8

Mobile home doors have some of their own issues, in addition to those that go with doors on conventional buildings. I’ve sent an email.

Best wishes,
Jerry

9

Wise choice!

Good luck!

10

You’re welcome! Sounds like you did the right thing.

Another aspect of mobile (manufactured) homes that you and Jerry might find interesting, if you’re not already aware, is that mobile homes are built to Federal HUD standards, not the Uniform Building Code like other houses. At least that was the case still a few years ago (assuming nothing’s changed). Everything on and within the home is inspected before the sale. Of course older homes are grandfathered in with their electrical wiring, etc. Newer ones have upgraded wiring requirements.

What this means is that a local building inspector has no jurisdiction over the construction of a mobile home…only what might be attached…such as porches, plumbing up to the outer edge of the home, etc. Local standards can be adopted for certain things…overriding certain fed standards regulating manufactured homes, such as roof load requirements. But otheriwse, for lack of amended local codes, the national snow load zoning map distributed by HUD is what goes. It’s really kind of general. For instance, the same snow load for a home at low elevation may be all that is required for that same home at higher elevations. That’s why in some areas of the mountains you often see another higher roof built over the one it came with. It’s very frustrating for building official to watch the collapse of some of these roofs.

I would assume the same thing applies in Florida, where you often see mobile homes entirely collapsed by the wind while other stick-frame homes next door have all been built to different standards…like hurricane clips…holding the roof to the walls, and walls to the floors.

11

There are snow load zones and wind load zones.

The mobile homes that go in the eastern coastal areas have to be built for a higher wind load than the ones that are placed inland. Even with that, mobile homes are obviously much more vulnerable to high winds than conventional buildings.

I haven’t heard that local building codes can override the federal snow load specifications for mobile homes. I live 45 miles from the boundary between two snow load zones. South of the New York Thruway, the federal code requires only a 20 pound/square foot engineered load. North of the thruway, a 30 pound roof is needed because of the lake effect snow band. I’ve worked with customers in both zones, and it’s really true that just 45 miles from here a 20 pound roof will do fine. However, in either zone, if there’s too much snow, you have to shovel the roof. But that’s not such a big job, and it’s needed only once or twice per typical winter.

Best wishes,
Jerry

12

Hire a qualified joiner!
This is probably one of the hardest jobs in that trade!