Door problems, explained
Why Is My Front Door Sticking, Swelling and Not Latching?
If your door binds in July and closes perfectly in February, nothing is wrong with your house. The wood is swelling. Exterior wood in the DC area swings between about 11.1 percent and 12.6 percent moisture content across the year (USDA Forest Products Laboratory, Wood Handbook Table 13-1), and a door fitted with a normal three-millimeter gap does not have much room to absorb that.
The reason it got worse this year rather than ten years ago is almost always the finish. A door with an intact film takes on moisture slowly and evenly. A door with a worn, cracked or bare finish takes it on fast, from one side, through the edges. That is why sticking is usually a finish symptom, not a carpentry one, and why planing the door is the wrong first move.
Why does my front door stick in summer and fit fine in winter?
Wood is hygroscopic. It absorbs moisture from the air until it reaches equilibrium, then releases it again when the air dries out, and it changes size doing it. The Forest Products Laboratory publishes the numbers for outdoor wood in Washington DC: roughly 11.1 percent moisture content in April and about 12.6 percent by September (Wood Handbook Table 13-1). Those are monthly averages, and daily swings sit on top of them.
A door swells across its width far more than along its height, because wood moves most across the grain. So a 36-inch door picks up a meaningful amount of width in a humid September and gives it back in a dry April. Add roughly 118 rain events a year at Dulles (NOAA NCEI climate normals) and a season of morning humidity, and a door with a tight fit and a tired finish will bind on the latch side for months at a time.
Is it swelling, or is it hinges, or is the house settling?
Look at where the door rubs and note the season.
Swelling: the rub is along the latch stile or the top rail, it appears in humid months and eases in dry ones, the gap around the door looks even when it is closed, and the finish is worn, chalky or bare, especially on the edges.
Hinges: the rub is at the top of the latch side and the door has dropped, the top hinge screws are loose or stripped, and it does the same thing all year. Tightening or replacing top hinge screws with longer ones that reach the framing fixes many of these in ten minutes.
Frame movement: the gap around the door is visibly tapered rather than parallel, the problem does not come and go with the weather, and you can usually see it in the trim or the sill too. Only that last one is a building problem.
Why does a worn finish make sticking so much worse?
A finish is a moisture barrier, and the number of coats matters more than people expect. The Forest Products Laboratory measured how well oil-modified urethane varnish keeps moisture out over two weeks: one coat blocks about 2 percent, two coats about 23 percent, three coats about 44 percent (Wood Handbook Table 16-3). Below three coats, the film barely slows water down at all.
Now think about where doors are thinnest. The top edge and the bottom edge are almost always unfinished, and those are end grain, the fastest path into the wood. So an unsealed door does not take moisture in evenly through its face. It draws it up from the bottom and down from the top, which makes the rails swell more than the panels and can bow the whole slab.
Rebuild the film on all six surfaces and the seasonal movement drops sharply. That is the actual fix.
What happens if I just plane the door down?
It works until March, then you have a door with a gap. Planing a swollen door removes wood at its widest point of the year. When humidity drops the door shrinks back and now the latch does not catch properly, weatherstripping does not seal, and you are heating the porch.
Worse, planing exposes fresh bare end grain along the edge you just cut. Unless you seal that edge immediately it becomes the fastest moisture path on the door, and next humid season it swells further than it did before. People plane a door two or three years running for exactly this reason.
The Park Service warns in Preservation Brief 47 against leaving exposed wood unfinished for any length of time, and a freshly planed door edge is a textbook case. If a door genuinely does have to be trimmed, and occasionally one does, it gets trimmed in the dry part of the year and sealed the same day.
Can I fix a sticking front door myself?
Some of it, yes. Tighten the hinge screws and replace the top hinge center screws with three-inch screws that bite into the framing. Clean and lubricate the latch and strike. Check that the strike plate is not simply worn out of position. Wipe a bar of soap or a candle on the sticking edge as a short-term measure. And seal the top and bottom edges if you can reach them, which alone helps more than most people expect.
What you cannot fix from a stepladder is a door that swells because its finish has failed across the whole slab. That needs the old film off, the wood dried and checked, and a proper multi-coat film rebuilt on every face and edge. And if the door has a bowed stile or a joint that has opened at a corner, sealing alone will not straighten it. Get someone to look at the joints before spending money on the surface.
What does a professional fix involve and what does it cost?
We strip the old finish, check the moisture content of the wood before anything goes on, address the joints and any soft spots, and rebuild the film with multiple coats on all six surfaces including the top and bottom edges. Then we adjust the hinges and the strike so the door sits where it should, and check the weatherstripping and sweep, because a swollen door often shredded them on its way past.
A single entry door is $550 to $1,400, a double or French door set is $950 to $2,200. A replacement door is $3,500 to $8,000 or more installed, which is a lot of money to solve a humidity problem, particularly since a new wood door will move seasonally too if its edges are not sealed.
If your door is binding right now, text a photo of the gap and the worn edge to (202) 979-9977.
Not sure how bad yours is?
Send your number and we text you straight back. Reply with a photo and we will tell you honestly.
- On-site — your door never leaves the house
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Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I plane my door or wait for the weather to change?
Wait, if you can live with it. A door that closes in April and binds in September is telling you its moisture content is swinging, and the moment you plane at the wet extreme you guarantee a loose fit at the dry one. Fix the finish first, on all six surfaces, and see where the door sits after a full season. Genuine trimming is a last resort, done in the driest part of the year, and the cut edge gets sealed the same day it is made.
Why does my door latch fine in January but not in September?
Because September is the wettest month for wood around here. The Forest Products Laboratory puts outdoor wood in Washington DC at about 11.1 percent moisture content in April and 12.6 percent in September (Wood Handbook Table 13-1). That is the annual peak, and it usually arrives with morning humidity and a run of rain. Your door is physically wider in September than it is in January. Nothing has broken, and nothing needs replacing, but the wood needs a film on it to slow that swing down.
Will refinishing actually stop my door from sticking?
It reduces the movement rather than eliminating it, and honesty matters here. Wood always moves. What a proper multi-coat film does is slow how fast moisture goes in and out, so the door swings across a much narrower range and stops crossing the threshold where it binds. Sealing the top and bottom edges is the biggest single gain, because that is where unsealed doors take on most of their water. Combined with a hinge and strike adjustment, most seasonal binding stops being noticeable.
My door is hard to lock but does not rub anywhere. What is that?
That is usually the deadbolt missing the strike rather than the slab binding. The door may have dropped a fraction on a worn top hinge, or the frame has moved a little, or the strike plate mortise has worn. Close the door slowly and watch where the bolt lands against the strike. If it is hitting low, tighten the top hinge first. If the whole door has racked out of square, check the bottom corners for soft wood, because a rotted corner joint lets a door lose its shape.
Does weatherstripping cause sticking?
It can, especially compression seals that have swollen, hardened or been installed a size too thick. Before you blame the wood, close the door on a strip of paper at several points around the frame. If the paper drags hard everywhere rather than at one spot, the seal is doing it. Old kerf-in weatherstripping is inexpensive to replace and we swap it as part of a refinish where it is needed, because a fresh finish deserves a seal that is not tearing itself on the way past.
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