Interior Door Adjustment & Planing
Interior door adjustment and planing is a five-step diagnostic fix for sticking, dragging, and non-latching interior doors — hinge screw repair, hinge shimming, strike plate realignment, threshold clearance check, and bottom-edge planing only as a last step — starting at $150 for a single-door hinge re-set. The bedroom door that scrapes a quarter-inch arc into the carpet, the bathroom door that needs a hip-check to close, the office door that swings open by itself at three in the morning because the frame is no longer plumb. Sticking and dragging interior doors are almost never warped — they are stripped hinge screws, racked hinges, drifted strike plates, or a new floor that raised the threshold a half inch. Handis diagnoses the cause before any material comes off the door, because a hollow-core door planed by mistake is a door that has to be replaced. Most fixes finish in 30 to 60 minutes per door.
Service
What Does an Interior Door Adjustment Include?
Interior door adjustment is a strict diagnostic order — hinge screws first, hinge alignment second, strike plate third, threshold clearance fourth, bottom-edge planing last — designed so most sticking doors get fixed without removing any material at all. Most calls finish at step one or two without removing any material from the door. Doing it in order is the difference between a door that swings true for the next decade and a door that has to be replaced because the wrong fix came first.
Step 1 — Hinge Screw Diagnosis
A stripped top-hinge screw drops the door a quarter inch at the latch corner — the exact symptom of a swollen door. We pull each hinge screw, check for thread bite, and re-set with one of three fixes. Hardwood toothpicks-and-glue plugs for shallow strips, an oak dowel for deeper wallow, or a 3-inch #9 screw long enough to bite into the framing stud behind the jamb when the jamb screws alone will not hold. Hinges get re-seated and the door re-hung before anything else.
Step 2 — Hinge Shim & Alignment
A racked door (high at the latch top, low at the latch bottom) needs a hinge shim, not a plane. We slip a manufactured plastic hinge shim or a hand-cut cardboard shim behind the appropriate hinge leaf to tip the door square in the frame. The door lifts back into its original plane without any material loss.
Step 3 — Strike Plate Realignment
A door that closes but does not latch is a strike-plate problem, not a door problem. The latch is off by 1/16 to 1/8 inch — usually because the frame settled or the strike screws backed out. We mortise the strike upward, downward, or sideways as needed, file the strike-plate hole if the misalignment is small, or remortise entirely if the drift is over 3/16 inch.
Step 4 — New-Flooring Threshold Clearance
New hardwood, LVP, or tile raises the finished floor 1/4 to 5/8 inch. The door that cleared the old carpet pile by an eighth now drags hard. We measure the actual clearance over the new surface (5/8 inch is the standard target — clears the rug, the door sweep, and any high spot in the floor), and plane to that target — not by eye.
Step 5 — Bottom-Edge Planing
The door comes off the hinges, goes across two sawhorses, gets scribed with a pencil reference line, and the bottom edge is planed with a sharp low-angle block plane or a Stanley #4 smoothing plane. We work from the long-grain ends toward the middle to prevent end-grain blowout. Edge gets sanded smooth, primed with shellac primer (kills any future paint blocking), and color-matched with one coat of matching paint before the door goes back on the hinges. No raw wood left on the bottom edge to drink humidity.
How Interior Door Adjustment & Planing Works
Five sequential steps from the hinge-screw check to the final paint-sealed bottom edge — the diagnostic order we follow on every sticking interior door so material only comes off when nothing else fixes it.
Hinge Screw Diagnosis
Pull every hinge screw, check for thread bite, and re-set with one of three fixes — hardwood toothpicks-and-glue plugs for shallow strips, an oak dowel for deeper wallow, or a 3-inch
Hinge Shim & Alignment
A racked door (high at the latch top, low at the latch bottom) gets a manufactured plastic shim or a hand-cut cardboard shim slipped behind the appropriate hinge leaf. The door lifts back into its original plane without any material loss.
Strike Plate Realignment
A door that closes but does not latch is a strike-plate problem, not a door problem. We mortise the strike upward, downward, or sideways, file the strike hole on misses under 1/16 inch, or remortise entirely on drift over 3/16 inch.
New-Flooring Threshold Clearance
Measure the actual clearance over the new hardwood, LVP, or tile (5/8 inch is the target — clears the rug, the door sweep, and any high spot in the floor). Planing is sized to that target, not by eye.
Bottom-Edge Planing & Refinish
Door comes off the hinges across two sawhorses, pencil reference line scribed, bottom edge planed with a sharp low-angle block plane from the long-grain ends toward the middle to prevent end-grain blowout. Edge sanded smooth, primed with shellac primer, color-matched with one coat of paint before the door goes back on the hinges.
Interior Door Adjustment & Planing Pricing
Final pricing depends on the diagnosis result, whether material has to come off the door, and how many doors fit into a single visit. Request a free estimate for an accurate quote.
Tell us which doors stick — bedroom, bath, closet — and we will quote the visit.
Why Handis for Interior Door Planing
The most expensive door-repair mistake we redo is a hollow-core door planed an inch off the bottom by a previous tech who skipped the hinge-screw check. The cardboard honeycomb core ends up exposed; the bottom edge cannot hold paint or weatherstrip; the door has to be replaced. We have walked into dozens of houses where the original problem was a single stripped top-hinge screw — a $2 fix — and the door is now scrap. Diagnosis is not optional. It is the difference between a 30-minute visit and a new door.
Hinge screws first, plane last
A stripped top-hinge screw drops the door a quarter inch — looks identical to a swollen door. We pull every hinge screw, check thread bite, and re-set before any plane comes out. Most doors get fixed without losing material.
Longer screws into framing, not just the jamb
The standard 3/4-inch hinge screws only bite the jamb. A 3-inch #9 screw passes through the jamb and into the framing stud behind it — that is what stops a door from drifting again next year. Standard upgrade on every hinge re-set we do.
Hollow-core protection rules
A hollow-core door has only a 1-inch solid bottom rail. Plane more than 1/2 inch and the cardboard honeycomb core is exposed — the door is scrap. We measure the bottom rail before any cut, target 5/8 inch clearance over the floor, and stop short of the rail every time.
Edge refinished, not left raw
Bare wood at the bottom of a planed door drinks every drop of humidity from the floor and swells back to where it started in six months. We seal the planed edge with shellac primer and one coat of matching paint before the door goes back on the hinges.
Whole-home check on multi-door visits
Settling, humidity, and a new floor affect every door in a house, not just the one that finally caught attention. On multi-door visits we test every interior door — even the ones you did not flag — and tell you which are close behind so you do not call us back in three months.
Estimate
Tell us which doors stick, what they are doing (drags, will not latch, swings open on its own), and whether new flooring went in recently. We will quote the visit.
Customer Reviews
Interior door adjustment and planing reviews from real Handis customers.
Bedroom door had been scraping the carpet since spring. Tech walked in, pulled the top hinge screw, showed me it was stripped clean — no thread bite. Plugged the hole with a toothpick bundle and glue, re-set the screw with a 3-inch one that grabbed the stud behind the jamb. Door swings true. Took twenty minutes. No planing.
New LVP flooring through the whole upstairs, four doors dragging hard. The tech measured the clearance over the new floor for each one, took two off the hinges, and planed exactly enough — the other two only needed strike plate realignment. He sealed the planed edges with primer and matched the paint. Doors swing like they were built for the new floor.
Bathroom door I had been shouldering closed for two years. Tech showed me the strike plate was off by an eighth — frame had settled. He remortised the strike upward, filed the strike hole a hair, and the latch fell into the strike under its own weight. Two-year problem, fifteen-minute fix.
Office door swinging open on its own at night. The tech leveled the door in the frame, found it was tipping toward the latch side because of a racked top hinge. Slipped a manufactured plastic shim behind the top hinge leaf and the door now stays exactly where I leave it. Did not understand the diagnosis going in. Understand it now.
Whole-home check, eight interior doors. Three needed hinge re-sets, two needed strike realignment, one needed a 3/8-inch plane after the master bath was retiled. Tech worked the whole house in about two and a half hours, sealed every planed edge, painted matched. He flagged a fourth door that would need attention next year — appreciated the upfront warning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about interior door adjustment and planing.