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Fitting A Bathroom Door – or Nightmare on B&Q Street
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Gnomeface
Posts: 2 Newbie
Last week I had a bit of free time coming up, so was wondering what I could do as a DIY pre-Christmas project.
Oh yes – replace that old bathroom door with one that matches the other doors in the house. A simple project that shouldn’t take too long.
So, a quick measurement of the old door and off to B&Q Torquay to get the bits.
First, find a 6-panel door; they only have one size of 6-panel moulded door – a broadland one, pre-primed and luckily the right size.
Next, the door furniture. I need a handle in brass with a lock, so rummage through the rather random collection of internal door handles. I happen to spot an Internal Door Set “Value” pack in brass effect that includes handles, hinges, tubular latch, spindle bar and screws – not the locking set I need but good value, so I grab a couple of sets anyway for future use.
Finally I spot a “Handle for Bathroom Lock” – great! There’s a hole in the handle mounting for the locking lever and spindle but no sign of one in the pack, which is sealed tighter than a duck’s proverbial so I can’t check. I summon an assistant, who tells me that the locks are available separately and reminds me that I’ll also need a latch as there isn’t one in the pack. Hmmm – the “Value” pack of ordinary handles I picked up earlier had everything, including latch and door hinges. Oh well, so I carry on searching for a matching lock and eventually find a Round Rose Lock Bolt – very limited stock but they had one left in brass – and a Bathroom Snib Bar so I quickly grabbed them. I also found a tubular latch, and happily headed for checkout, making a mental note that I must expand my vocabulary to include Snib Bar and Round Rose Lock Bolt (once I work out what the terms actually mean).
Whoops! – whilst at the checkout I found that the lock bolt and the door latch were completely different lengths!! A bit awkward when they had to fit the same door handle! So, back to find a 60mm tubular door latch in brass instead of the standard 40mm. Eventually I found one and checked out with a sigh of relief, wondering why I couldn’t just buy a “Value” bathroom door pack with everything included.
Back home and unloaded, all looked rosy for the project next week. I decided to unwrap the door to check for any damage, and then found the fitting instructions hidden on the back of the label. They included “… must have both faces and all 4 edges finished with a suitable paint or stain within three days, failure to do so may result in the door warping”. WOW! Warping within three days of receipt! Beam me up, Scottie, I have a major upgrade for the Enterprise. Well, I can’t paint the door’s edges until I’ve cut it to size, and that’s next week and more than 3 days away, so … tough.
The following week I got started. Removed the old door and after checking that it was still a good fit laid it on top of the new one as a template, taking care that the edge marked “lock” on the new one was at the correct side (yes, they are so parsimonious at B&Q that the extra reinforcement needed for the lock area is only on one side of the door, so you need to read the instructions VERY carefully and get the door the right way round). The new door needed a 15mm reduction in height, but… the instructions say that you can only remove 6mm from the bottom of the door, and none from the top! 6mm limit!!! That’s less than 1/4 inch! Cobblers, I’d no other choice so neatly removed 15mm from the bottom with a fine-toothed saw – plus a hacksaw to cut through the embedded steel pins that would have wrecked my wood saw if I hadn’t been alert. Then I skimmed the door edge by a fraction using an electric plane that I’d borrowed (fantastic device, by the way) and lo and behold… it fitted the doorway just fine.
Now to fit the hinges – blast, I never bought any, and the old ones are in bad shape and a very odd size. Wait, though, I have those two spare “Value” sets that included hinges so I quickly open one up, find a pair of brass 3” hinges and all is well. I sharpen my wood chisels and soon have the hinge recesses neatly cut into the door and doorframe, avoiding the original hinge slots in the door frame since they had obviously been excavated by someone using a very blunt screwdriver. Then something odd – just before drilling the pilot holes for the hinge screws, I double-checked as per the old mantra “measure twice, fix once” and found my markings didn’t match the holes in the hinge. Very strange, until I discovered that the two hinges had their holes in slightly different places and were not interchangeable! Good grief! I opened the other Value pack and those hinges were different again! Cursing B&Q I labelled each hinge before hanging the door. B&Q “Value” seems to be at the expense of quality control. Anyway the door fitted perfectly first time – except that one of the screws pulled out of the door! There’s very little wood depth in the edge of the hollow door to screw into (come on B&Q, you really need to improve the quality of these doors!) and B&Q provide ordinary wood screws which are not threaded right up to the head, so in such a thin piece of door timber nearly all of the thread is wasted projecting into the internal cavity. Does anyone at B&Q ever try hanging a door??
The B&Q screws were dumped and normal fully threaded countersunk screws were used instead; a small splinter of softwood knocked into the failed screw hole restored grip for the new screw. So, the door was now hung successfully, just the door handle and lock to fix. After a restorative drink.
Then much wrestling with the bathroom door handle packaging, obviously designed by a security consultant recently retired from Fort Knox; I eventually managed to unscrew the plastic securing screws and free the plastic securing locks on the handles to finally expose the contents - and inside (invisible prior to opening) was a Snib Bar! Why didn’t it say so on the outside of the packaging? So I put the extra one I’d bought in a safe place to return to B&Q later. Now to check that everything fits together properly.
The Snib Lock spindle bar is the first oddity – it’s much longer than the spindle for the door latch (which is OK for a standard door width) so it will need shortened. However, the slotted “emergency opening” knob which is fixed onto one end of the bar has been glued / brazed on at a very peculiar angle, such that its axis is about 20 degrees out from the axis of the spindle itself. If you were to spin the spindle the knob would resemble a child’s spinning top at the point where it is wobbling into oblivion. So, that’s completely unusable… now where was that safe place I put the one to return to B&Q in? After retrieving and opening the spare, it turned out to be a different design (but better, and it still fitted the handle set) although this one had its emergency knob fixed with the slot tilted at 15 degrees from vertical when the spindle was in the lock! Just what is happening to Quality Control, B&Q?
Had another bracing drink and carried on, cutting the second over-long spindle bar to the correct length and painstakingly filing a recess in it to match the original end (which I’d had to cut off, of course!) so that the screw in the lock lever would grip properly. Next, holes in the end of the door were bored for the tubular door latch and the lock unit and squared off with a chisel, as the tubular latch and lock are both rectangular in section not round. Finally, the end plates were recessed into the edge of the door so that both fitted flush and touching each other.
All good, so now carefully mark where the two spindles will protrude through the door panel and drill the clearance holes through the door. This all went well, so the latch and lock were refitted and screwed into place.
Time to fix the handles, so I push the main spindle through the door and latch and slide the two handles on, then push the lock spindle through... but it will not fit through both handles; something doesn’t line up. How could that happen? After dismantling everything and carefully measuring the distance from the front of the mounting plate to the centre of the spindle hole on both latch and lock unit (the “backset”, I think it’s termed) I found that they are 2mm different!!!!! The only solution is to recess the lock unit (but not the latch) by a further 2mm into the door edge, spoiling the look – but at least it brought everything into alignment. More cursing of B&Q’s lack of quality.
Next problem – the special reinforcement built in to the door for the door lock only matches the shorter 40mm locks, so when you use the longer ones (and I had no choice at B&Q as I required a bathroom lock) two of the four screws that hold each handle in place are outside the reinforcement and only screw into the hardboard outer skin of the door – there’s only a void behind. Ugh! They will hold for now but will need special fixings at some point.
Problem after problem, and there were still the striker plates to fix into the door frame. Yes, that’s two of them; I fitted them without problem although it would have been much easier to fit a single striker plate with two recesses, as is normal for a handle with a lock, but that’s not the B&Q way.
Finally, the bathroom door closed and the lock itself worked perfectly – but the cursed latch didn’t catch, even though it was correctly aligned! It wouldn’t click into the striker plate unless the handle was pressed down first and released, then it would latch. The reason was soon apparent – the tongue of the latch is far too loose in its tubular mounting and will move sideways by a good 2-3mm when it first hits the striker plate. What a rubbish product! The two “Value” latches are perfectly OK with virtually no free play – but they are shorter than the one I had to use for this door so I couldn’t swap. The only way to sort it out now is to dismantle yet again, take the latch back to B&Q and hope that a replacement is better (and has the same dimensions!). First though, I need to regain the will to live – maybe another stiff drink will help?
A day or so later, having sobered up I dismantled the latch (again) and did the 20-mile round trip to B&Q to have it replaced. Ah, good news at last no problem replacing it and there are 8 of them on the rack now. Check the first one carefully, but it’s almost as bad as the original, so try the second… and the third… and… eventually the seventh one is nice and tight, although there are subtle differences that tell me it’s from a different manufacturer. Finally rush out of the store dancing with joy that this saga will finally be over. Stop to reassure a few worried pensioners that I’m not really off my rocker, just over the moon to have found a door latch that works properly.
Once home, I carry my prize carefully into the bathroom and offer it up to the door – but it won’t fit!! WHAT? The manufacturer has fixed the latch onto the rectangular fixing plate off centre. Out with the chisel again to enlarge the hole for the latch, and finally it fits into the door. What can go wrong now, I ask? Silly question – the screw holes in the securing plate don’t align with the old ones, and the handle and lock spindles don’t now line up! Dismantle everything yet again and measure carefully, and the ‘backset’ of this latch is at least 2mm less than the original one. Have a brief cry and reassure my wife that the howls of pain are not because I’ve severed a limb (although maybe that would be preferable to working with B&Q door furniture) then recess the latch deeper into the door until it all lines up again. The screws are at an angle now because of the wrongly-aligned holes, but it’s all recessed so deep into the door that I don’t care – the latch and lock finally work. Head for the local pub to boost their takings for the evening and persuade my mates that old mismatched bathroom doors are works of art and should NEVER be replaced.
Will I ever be able to sleep properly again, or will my dreams continue to be haunted by animated B&Q door furniture of all shapes and sizes (but no two the same) pursuing me through an endless labyrinth of 6-panel doors warping into existence around me? Maybe a therapeutic visit to Homebase or Wickes might help.
Oh yes – replace that old bathroom door with one that matches the other doors in the house. A simple project that shouldn’t take too long.
So, a quick measurement of the old door and off to B&Q Torquay to get the bits.
First, find a 6-panel door; they only have one size of 6-panel moulded door – a broadland one, pre-primed and luckily the right size.
Next, the door furniture. I need a handle in brass with a lock, so rummage through the rather random collection of internal door handles. I happen to spot an Internal Door Set “Value” pack in brass effect that includes handles, hinges, tubular latch, spindle bar and screws – not the locking set I need but good value, so I grab a couple of sets anyway for future use.
Finally I spot a “Handle for Bathroom Lock” – great! There’s a hole in the handle mounting for the locking lever and spindle but no sign of one in the pack, which is sealed tighter than a duck’s proverbial so I can’t check. I summon an assistant, who tells me that the locks are available separately and reminds me that I’ll also need a latch as there isn’t one in the pack. Hmmm – the “Value” pack of ordinary handles I picked up earlier had everything, including latch and door hinges. Oh well, so I carry on searching for a matching lock and eventually find a Round Rose Lock Bolt – very limited stock but they had one left in brass – and a Bathroom Snib Bar so I quickly grabbed them. I also found a tubular latch, and happily headed for checkout, making a mental note that I must expand my vocabulary to include Snib Bar and Round Rose Lock Bolt (once I work out what the terms actually mean).
Whoops! – whilst at the checkout I found that the lock bolt and the door latch were completely different lengths!! A bit awkward when they had to fit the same door handle! So, back to find a 60mm tubular door latch in brass instead of the standard 40mm. Eventually I found one and checked out with a sigh of relief, wondering why I couldn’t just buy a “Value” bathroom door pack with everything included.
Back home and unloaded, all looked rosy for the project next week. I decided to unwrap the door to check for any damage, and then found the fitting instructions hidden on the back of the label. They included “… must have both faces and all 4 edges finished with a suitable paint or stain within three days, failure to do so may result in the door warping”. WOW! Warping within three days of receipt! Beam me up, Scottie, I have a major upgrade for the Enterprise. Well, I can’t paint the door’s edges until I’ve cut it to size, and that’s next week and more than 3 days away, so … tough.
The following week I got started. Removed the old door and after checking that it was still a good fit laid it on top of the new one as a template, taking care that the edge marked “lock” on the new one was at the correct side (yes, they are so parsimonious at B&Q that the extra reinforcement needed for the lock area is only on one side of the door, so you need to read the instructions VERY carefully and get the door the right way round). The new door needed a 15mm reduction in height, but… the instructions say that you can only remove 6mm from the bottom of the door, and none from the top! 6mm limit!!! That’s less than 1/4 inch! Cobblers, I’d no other choice so neatly removed 15mm from the bottom with a fine-toothed saw – plus a hacksaw to cut through the embedded steel pins that would have wrecked my wood saw if I hadn’t been alert. Then I skimmed the door edge by a fraction using an electric plane that I’d borrowed (fantastic device, by the way) and lo and behold… it fitted the doorway just fine.
Now to fit the hinges – blast, I never bought any, and the old ones are in bad shape and a very odd size. Wait, though, I have those two spare “Value” sets that included hinges so I quickly open one up, find a pair of brass 3” hinges and all is well. I sharpen my wood chisels and soon have the hinge recesses neatly cut into the door and doorframe, avoiding the original hinge slots in the door frame since they had obviously been excavated by someone using a very blunt screwdriver. Then something odd – just before drilling the pilot holes for the hinge screws, I double-checked as per the old mantra “measure twice, fix once” and found my markings didn’t match the holes in the hinge. Very strange, until I discovered that the two hinges had their holes in slightly different places and were not interchangeable! Good grief! I opened the other Value pack and those hinges were different again! Cursing B&Q I labelled each hinge before hanging the door. B&Q “Value” seems to be at the expense of quality control. Anyway the door fitted perfectly first time – except that one of the screws pulled out of the door! There’s very little wood depth in the edge of the hollow door to screw into (come on B&Q, you really need to improve the quality of these doors!) and B&Q provide ordinary wood screws which are not threaded right up to the head, so in such a thin piece of door timber nearly all of the thread is wasted projecting into the internal cavity. Does anyone at B&Q ever try hanging a door??
The B&Q screws were dumped and normal fully threaded countersunk screws were used instead; a small splinter of softwood knocked into the failed screw hole restored grip for the new screw. So, the door was now hung successfully, just the door handle and lock to fix. After a restorative drink.
Then much wrestling with the bathroom door handle packaging, obviously designed by a security consultant recently retired from Fort Knox; I eventually managed to unscrew the plastic securing screws and free the plastic securing locks on the handles to finally expose the contents - and inside (invisible prior to opening) was a Snib Bar! Why didn’t it say so on the outside of the packaging? So I put the extra one I’d bought in a safe place to return to B&Q later. Now to check that everything fits together properly.
The Snib Lock spindle bar is the first oddity – it’s much longer than the spindle for the door latch (which is OK for a standard door width) so it will need shortened. However, the slotted “emergency opening” knob which is fixed onto one end of the bar has been glued / brazed on at a very peculiar angle, such that its axis is about 20 degrees out from the axis of the spindle itself. If you were to spin the spindle the knob would resemble a child’s spinning top at the point where it is wobbling into oblivion. So, that’s completely unusable… now where was that safe place I put the one to return to B&Q in? After retrieving and opening the spare, it turned out to be a different design (but better, and it still fitted the handle set) although this one had its emergency knob fixed with the slot tilted at 15 degrees from vertical when the spindle was in the lock! Just what is happening to Quality Control, B&Q?
Had another bracing drink and carried on, cutting the second over-long spindle bar to the correct length and painstakingly filing a recess in it to match the original end (which I’d had to cut off, of course!) so that the screw in the lock lever would grip properly. Next, holes in the end of the door were bored for the tubular door latch and the lock unit and squared off with a chisel, as the tubular latch and lock are both rectangular in section not round. Finally, the end plates were recessed into the edge of the door so that both fitted flush and touching each other.
All good, so now carefully mark where the two spindles will protrude through the door panel and drill the clearance holes through the door. This all went well, so the latch and lock were refitted and screwed into place.
Time to fix the handles, so I push the main spindle through the door and latch and slide the two handles on, then push the lock spindle through... but it will not fit through both handles; something doesn’t line up. How could that happen? After dismantling everything and carefully measuring the distance from the front of the mounting plate to the centre of the spindle hole on both latch and lock unit (the “backset”, I think it’s termed) I found that they are 2mm different!!!!! The only solution is to recess the lock unit (but not the latch) by a further 2mm into the door edge, spoiling the look – but at least it brought everything into alignment. More cursing of B&Q’s lack of quality.
Next problem – the special reinforcement built in to the door for the door lock only matches the shorter 40mm locks, so when you use the longer ones (and I had no choice at B&Q as I required a bathroom lock) two of the four screws that hold each handle in place are outside the reinforcement and only screw into the hardboard outer skin of the door – there’s only a void behind. Ugh! They will hold for now but will need special fixings at some point.
Problem after problem, and there were still the striker plates to fix into the door frame. Yes, that’s two of them; I fitted them without problem although it would have been much easier to fit a single striker plate with two recesses, as is normal for a handle with a lock, but that’s not the B&Q way.
Finally, the bathroom door closed and the lock itself worked perfectly – but the cursed latch didn’t catch, even though it was correctly aligned! It wouldn’t click into the striker plate unless the handle was pressed down first and released, then it would latch. The reason was soon apparent – the tongue of the latch is far too loose in its tubular mounting and will move sideways by a good 2-3mm when it first hits the striker plate. What a rubbish product! The two “Value” latches are perfectly OK with virtually no free play – but they are shorter than the one I had to use for this door so I couldn’t swap. The only way to sort it out now is to dismantle yet again, take the latch back to B&Q and hope that a replacement is better (and has the same dimensions!). First though, I need to regain the will to live – maybe another stiff drink will help?
A day or so later, having sobered up I dismantled the latch (again) and did the 20-mile round trip to B&Q to have it replaced. Ah, good news at last no problem replacing it and there are 8 of them on the rack now. Check the first one carefully, but it’s almost as bad as the original, so try the second… and the third… and… eventually the seventh one is nice and tight, although there are subtle differences that tell me it’s from a different manufacturer. Finally rush out of the store dancing with joy that this saga will finally be over. Stop to reassure a few worried pensioners that I’m not really off my rocker, just over the moon to have found a door latch that works properly.
Once home, I carry my prize carefully into the bathroom and offer it up to the door – but it won’t fit!! WHAT? The manufacturer has fixed the latch onto the rectangular fixing plate off centre. Out with the chisel again to enlarge the hole for the latch, and finally it fits into the door. What can go wrong now, I ask? Silly question – the screw holes in the securing plate don’t align with the old ones, and the handle and lock spindles don’t now line up! Dismantle everything yet again and measure carefully, and the ‘backset’ of this latch is at least 2mm less than the original one. Have a brief cry and reassure my wife that the howls of pain are not because I’ve severed a limb (although maybe that would be preferable to working with B&Q door furniture) then recess the latch deeper into the door until it all lines up again. The screws are at an angle now because of the wrongly-aligned holes, but it’s all recessed so deep into the door that I don’t care – the latch and lock finally work. Head for the local pub to boost their takings for the evening and persuade my mates that old mismatched bathroom doors are works of art and should NEVER be replaced.
Will I ever be able to sleep properly again, or will my dreams continue to be haunted by animated B&Q door furniture of all shapes and sizes (but no two the same) pursuing me through an endless labyrinth of 6-panel doors warping into existence around me? Maybe a therapeutic visit to Homebase or Wickes might help.
0
Comments
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I reached the fourth paragraph. Any chance of a summary?0
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B&Q doors and hardware are cheap poor quality sh1tetonycottee wrote: »I reached the fourth paragraph. Any chance of a summary?
0 -
At least you didn't lock yourself in the bathroom...A kind word lasts a minute, a skelped erse is sair for a day.0
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tonycottee wrote: »I reached the fourth paragraph. Any chance of a summary?
OP bought the wrong product, bodged it to try and make if fit, wrecked the whole thing.0 -
Not quite sure what the wrong product was - 6-panel door (check), bathroom handle, latch & lock in brass effect (check).OP bought the wrong product, bodged it to try and make if fit, wrecked the whole thing.
Of course, if I'd bought a size smaller door instead of the correct size and nailed on extra trim top and bottom to make it fit, THAT would be a bodge. Or was it the bathroom door handle and lock that was the wrong thing for a bathroom door?
Oh yes, another minor point - nothing was wrecked and the whole thing now works fine.
My original post was certainly too long (sorry, Tony) but born out of frustration with the awful quality of B&Q's DIY products, and rather than just say 'they're rubbish' I wanted to demonstrate how frustrating it can be trying to get round the problems they create.
More accurate summary - Bought the right products, had to make many adjustments for their poor quality, all now OK; will not use B&Q next time.0
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