joemama

Greetings all,

I bought a house recently so I'm now a master carpenter, plumber, painter, etc. In reality I've never done much home repair or remodeling and this issue has me scratching my head.



The door which goes with this door frame comes from the left of the picture as it closes. As you can see, the striker plate is nearly flush with the frame. As a result, the latch catches the frame and trim every time the door closes.

I'd like to come up with a solution that doesn't involve changing the door frame. So far my best idea is a custom striker plate that will cover the length of the trim, but I think that will look pretty amateurish.

Any thoughts?

nealtw

People do make them finding them is always a challange.

Extended Striker Plates : JMA Hardware, Handles, Locks, Hinges and more...

CalRehabber

Usually this happens from the house settling, put a level all around..

Look for screws in the door frame, if your lucky they used em and you might be able to tighten up all around, otherwise try a sledge hammer to move the frame away from the door a little bit...

joecaption

I must be missing something. What I see in that picture is a huge section of wood busted out that's not would the time to try and fix. It needs replacent.
Lots of times on older house there's so many layers of paint the door rubs, but that one looks like someone kicked in the door when it was locked.

nealtw

Actualy it looks like some one wanted a bigger door so they removed the jam and used the brick molding for the jam. I really liked that it has a 1/4" masonite for sucuraty I guess. But that wasn't the question.

joemama

There were lots of questionable construction choices in this structure. I think the extended striker plate idea sounds like a good one, thanks.

I was tempted to rip the whole frame out and start with a security door, but this is a house I plan to rent and new security doors/frames just aren't in my budget.

Thanks all

nealtw

Find a use one, that's not safe enough for renters.

joecaption

My guess is you have never done home repairs before. You have never rented out a house before.
You would loose more then the one door would cost per month in rent if you have someone come look at the place with a busted up door frame like that.
36 in. x 80 in. Steel White Prehung Right-Hand Inswing 6-Lite Craftsman Entry Door with Brickmould-H75747 at The Home Depot

Think about it what would you and your wife think if you saw something all busted up like that.
It would be faster to remove the whole door and replace it with a prehung unit.

treimers

I'm with you on this one, JoeCaption ---

I've bought and hung doors in two hours before, and I'm NOT some kind of semi-pro carpenter or handyman.

So long as the frame is reasonably square, a new door shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to install, and only costs about $180 for a cheaper steel exterior prehung door and frame.

My bet is you're going to spend way way more time trying to fumble around and fix that problem and make it look secure to a renter.

One thing I know about renting is that the quality of the renter you get is directly proportional to the rent you charge (not perfect, but usually true) -- low quality folks can't afford a high rent, and you won't get people willing to pay a higher rent if you hide a disaster behind some metal trim...
They have enough education/experience/common sense in life to see through things, or they wouldn't have the income they do.
(hedge fund managers and lawyers excepted here)

(side note - NEVER EVER rent to a lawyer... had a friend do that. He got threatened with six lawsuits from his renter in 18 months over crap the neighbors did that the landlord was supposed to have some control over??
Mainly, the lowlife was just hoping for free money settled out of court - no way the cases would have won in court, but it'd still have cost the my landlord friend plenty o $$$ to set foot in the courtroom and the lowlife ambulance chaser knew that, which is why the scum was after free money trying to get settlement out of court...)

joecaption

Would not have cost him anything to go to court.
Just sit there, have the other guy state his case and say nothing in rebutal.
Once the judge heard his case it would be thrown out.
Give in and the other guy wins and will do it again.