Warning sign
Doors and windows that stick or won't latch
A door frame is a rectangle. When the floor or wall around it shifts, the rectangle leans, and the door is the first thing to complain.
Reading the door
Three things the gap tells you
The gap is a wedge
Look at the space above the closed door. An even gap is normal. A gap that is tight at the latch side and open at the hinge side, or the reverse, means the frame is out of square.
The latch has drifted
If the bolt now hits above or below the hole in the strike plate, the jamb has moved up or down relative to the door. Fresh scrape marks on the plate show it happened recently.
It is more than one door
One stubborn door is a door problem. Several doors on the same side of the house, or in a line from floor to floor, point at whatever holds up that part of the building.
Rule these out
The ordinary reasons a door sticks
Wood swells in a humid Boston summer and shrinks again when the heat comes on. A door that binds in July and swings clear in January is reacting to the air, and so is a sash that only jams in wet weather.
Other everyday causes: hinge screws that have worked loose in old jambs, a century of paint building up on the edges, sash cords that have broken, and windows that were painted shut. A carpenter fixes all of these in an afternoon.
What humidity does not do is open a crack in the plaster above the frame, tilt the floor under the threshold, or make a door swing open by its own weight. Those belong with the door problem on a list for an inspection.
At the inspection
What a company looks at
Expect the inspection to start in the basement, directly under the doors that give trouble. In many older Boston houses the middle of the building rests on a timber beam carried by posts, and a post that has rotted at its base or sunk into a soft floor lets everything above it sag toward the center.
If the affected doors are along an outside wall, attention turns to the foundation wall and the ground beside it. The company will usually take floor readings across each room with a level so the low spots can be drawn on a plan.
Afterwards
What repair can involve
Interior sag is commonly dealt with by new posts on proper footings or by strengthening the beam. Settlement at the perimeter is a different job, usually involving piers. Both are outlined in the repair methods guide.
Rehanging and trimming the doors comes after the structure has been dealt with. Planing a door to fit a frame that is still moving means planing it again next year.
Questions about sticking doors
My doors only stick in summer. Should I worry?
Seasonal sticking that clears up every winter is typical of old wood doors and is rarely structural. Keep an eye on whether the gap above the door stays even through the year. If it turns into a wedge, or cracks appear at the frame corners, have it inspected.
I own one floor of a triple-decker. The sticking doors are in my unit. Who should call?
The beams, posts and foundation of a condominium building are normally common property, so tell the association or the other owners first. An inspection needs access to the basement and often to the other floors, and any structural repair will be the association's decision.
Windows upstairs are jammed but the doors are fine. Is that a foundation sign?
Less likely. Upper sashes usually stick because of paint, swollen wood or a tired balance. Check whether the frames themselves look square and whether there are cracks in the wall beside them before assuming the cause is below ground.
Foundation repair in Boston
Have a Boston foundation company take a look
Give the street, the kind of building and what has changed. The company settles a day to visit, and afterwards you receive its written account of the cause and what it would charge.
Ready to have it looked at?
Phone and say what you have seen. The firm on the other end is a Boston-area foundation repair company, independent of this website, and it can book a visit to your home.
Call (617) 555-0111You speak with an independent company, not with this website. See the referral disclosure.