Why Your Interior Doors Are Sticking, and How to Fix Them

A door that sticks or rubs is more than an inconvenience -- if you use a cane, walker, or wheelchair, a door that needs an extra shove to open or close can become a genuine daily obstacle. Most sticking doors have a simple, identifiable cause, and fixing them is one of the more forgiving repairs you can take on yourself.

Signs and what they usually mean

• The door rubs at one corner -- often a hinge issue
• The latch no longer lines up with the strike plate -- hinges or frame movement
• The door only sticks in humid weather -- the wood is swelling seasonally
• The gap around the door looks uneven, wider at the top than the bottom or vice versa -- worth watching for other signs of settling

What's usually behind it

Loose hinge screws are the single most common cause, especially at the top hinge, which carries most of the door's weight over time. Humidity is next most common -- wood naturally swells slightly in warm, humid months and shrinks back in winter, so a door that only sticks in summer often needs no more than a hinge check. Layers of old paint on the door edge and general settling of the house frame can also be factors.

What you can safely do

• Start with the hinges: tighten every screw on all hinges. If a screw spins without tightening, it's stripped -- replace it with a slightly longer screw that reaches past the doorframe into the solid wall framing behind it
• Close the door slowly and use a pencil to mark exactly where it's rubbing, so you know precisely where to focus
• If it's just a small amount of wood swelling, take the door off its hinges (or have someone help you lift it off) and sand only the marked high spot -- a little at a time, checking often, rather than removing a lot at once
• Once you've sanded, seal the bare wood edge with a bit of paint or varnish so it doesn't absorb moisture again next season
• Only adjust the strike plate -- the metal piece the latch clicks into -- after you've ruled out hinge and clearance issues

Removing a door from its hinges involves some lifting, so if you're managing this alone, consider using a door wedge to hold it steady, or asking a neighbour or family member to help for the ten minutes it takes.

Mistakes to avoid

• Sanding the whole edge of the door instead of just the marked high spot
• Moving the strike plate before checking whether sagging hinges are the real problem
• Taking off too much wood in one pass -- you can always remove more, but you can't put it back
• Ignoring several doors sticking at once, which can be a sign of something bigger

When to call a professional

If multiple doors around the house have started sticking around the same time, if you notice new cracks forming near door or window frames, or if the frame itself looks visibly out of square, that points to structural movement in the house rather than a simple door adjustment -- and it's worth having a professional take a look rather than repeatedly planing doors that will just stick again.