Big gap between door and frame

Hennymore

We recently moved into a house with a big gap in the top-right corner of the front door,
as seen from the inside. The gap is large enough that for part of it you can see straight through to outside.



The door fits well along the other three corners, so we couldn't "just" tighten or tweak the hinges. Presumably previous owners have shaved the door off already to fit in its current, wonky alignment.



I'm thinking the best thing to do here might be to add a piece of wood either to the top side of the door frame, or the top of the door, to fill up most of that hole. And weatherstripping tape for any remaining small gap.

Sensible? Would you add to the door or the frame? Anything to consider? Other ideas?

sevenhills

Perhaps instead of added to the door, you should get a piece of wood to lower the door frame, then just insulate.

Hennymore

Yup, that was one of my proposed solutions above. Thank you!

Simon_Dwight

@Hennymore I had the exact same problem in my house, except that the gap was at the bottom of our door, which is slightly easier to solve.

I'd try adjusting the hinges on the door, see if you could put it in a better position. Alternatively you could try adding weather stripping on the top part.

Hope this helps!

john.h

The door needs taking of and refitting. You can plane the top of the door to fit the frame. The sides also look badly fitted from the pics.
If there as a large gap at the bottom of the door after lifting it, add a strip of timber there to the door.

John.

Hennymore

john.h wrote: »

The door needs taking of and refitting. You can plane the top of the door to fit the frame. The sides also look badly fitted from the pics.
If there as a large gap at the bottom of the door after lifting it, add a strip of timber there to the door.

Thank you, John. Would it be better to plane the top and add a strip to the bottom, than for us to add a strip to the top? I guess it might be less visible because it's further down and the strip could be more straight.

The sides don't have huge gaps, but they do have some, so you may be right that it's poorly fitted to the sides as well. I think the door may be original from the very early 1900s and I'm not sure what previous owners have done exactly.

I might look into having it professionally refitted. Seems like the kind of thing a pro could do fairly quickly and an amateur could take a long time to botch up…

sevenhills

You can get a new internal door from B+Q for £25

john.h

Hennymore wrote: »

Thank you, John. Would it be better to plane the top and add a strip to the bottom, than for us to add a strip to the top? I guess it might be less visible because it's further down and the strip could be more straight.

The sides don't have huge gaps, but they do have some, so you may be right that it's poorly fitted to the sides as well. I think the door may be original from the very early 1900s and I'm not sure what previous owners have done exactly.

I might look into having it professionally refitted. Seems like the kind of thing a pro could do fairly quickly and an amateur could take a long time to botch up…

It would be a better job to cut the top of the door to match the head of the frame. With only basic diy tools it could be difficult to do a good job.
Professionally fit there should be about a 2mm gap on both sides and the head. By the look of it there is just years off paint been coated on the doors which has closed the gap on the sides.
If you do refit the door remember the hinges will need adjusting too.

John..

john.h

sevenhills wrote: »

You can get a new internal door from B+Q for £25

You can get a new door for half that price, but it won’t match the rest of the house. And who really wants a 6 panel hollow core door fitted?

John..

Alter_ego

sevenhills wrote: »

You can get a new internal door from B+Q for £25

Yes but the problem is with the front door.

MX5huggy

The door and hinges are probably 80 to 90 years old, I would rehang it on new ball bearing hinges. The wear on the hinges will have worn and caused the drop which will have been corrected by adjusting the door. You will still have to add wood to fill the gap but it should not get worse.