Doors, locks and hardware in Illinois

A door that sticks, sags or won’t latch is a small problem you deal with every day. Most of the time the cause is simple: a loose hinge, a strike plate that’s shifted, or wood that’s swelled with the weather. Nikola finds the cause and fixes it, and he also swaps knobs, levers and deadbolts, gets closet doors back on track and seals drafts around exterior doors.

What’s included

• Tightening hinge screws, or replacing stripped ones with longer screws that bite into the framing
• Adjusting hinges so a sagging door hangs straight again
• Moving or adjusting strike plates so doors latch without a shove
• Planing a door edge that rubs, then sealing the bare wood
• Installing knobs, levers, deadbolts and keyed entry sets
• Fixing bifold and sliding closet doors that jump their tracks
• Replacing worn weatherstripping and door sweeps

How the visit goes

Nikola starts by finding out why the door is acting up, because the fix for a loose hinge is different from the fix for a frame that’s shifted as the house settled. He tells you what he found before he starts, and if the answer is a two-minute screw, that’s what you get.

Wood shavings, old hardware and packaging get cleaned up and hauled away, and every door he touched gets opened, closed and locked before he leaves.

Materials

If you’ve already bought the hardware, Nikola installs it. If not, he can suggest a few options in your price range and pick them up. Most new deadbolts and entry sets fit standard door holes, but older doors sometimes need the holes adjusted. He’ll tell you if yours do.

For drafty exterior doors, weatherstripping and sweeps come in a few styles. Bring a photo of the bottom of the door and the frame, and he’ll know what to bring.

Timing

Most door adjustments and hardware swaps take an hour or less per door, so they’re a good fit for a list with a few other small jobs. Your written quote covers the whole list before any work starts.