How to Keep Door Hinges Hinged

Member

By mikimoco
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating: (12 Ratings)

Stripped out hinge screws cause doors to hang.

Doors used often, especially bathroom doors, are prone to get loose, droop and sage due to the screws in door hinges getting loose and stripping from the holes that hold them. Often we allow them to become worse, just thinking about the whole usual process of repairing them. This article is written to make the whole repair easier.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

screw driver
wood glue
household toothpicks
a smile on your face

Step 1

When we think about fixing a sagging or loose door, our mind runs to Bob Villa or Norm Abrams, doors off in the hall, repositioning the door hinges, and a lot of work. Thankfully, there is a much easier solution involving much less effort, one household tool, and supplies most people have around the house.
Step 2

Norm Abrams would probably have you remove the door, but why go to all that trouble. Most of the time, the door hinges strip out on the jam side. Simply begin by taking out the screws that are loose. They may be so loose that you can pull them out.
Step 3

Find some glue, preferably wood glue, and squeeze some into the holes from which the screws to the door hinges stripped. Let the glue set for about one minute, so it is gooey, but not hardened.
Step 4

While that glue is drying a bit, quickly find something to put in the stripped holes of the door hinges that is solid. Some people suggest a wooden dowel, but you have to have a saw handy to cut it off at he surface of the hole and a dowel at the perfect circumference of the whole you plan to plug. Too much trouble!
Step 5

Some people find it clever to use golf tees, because they go in the holes with a narrow end to a wider one which plugs the hole well and leaves a surface much like the dowel for the screw to go back into. Golf tees are also easy to break off. This is all fine, but the odds of having golf tees around the average household are not good.
Step 6

The most probably available and least costly material is toothpicks. Most people have some of those common wooden toothpicks around the kitchen. You can just shove one after another into each hole until you cannot put any more in. Each time you put another toothpick in the hole, break it off at the surface level. Now let them set up in the holes with the glue, until hardened.
Step 7

Once the glue is set, simply flip the door hinges back over the new surface and begin to screw all the screws back into the new toothpick surface. Make sure that you stop screwing before you strip the screw holes. Slightly snug is just fine. The three or so screws, times the number of door hinges, will hold the door fine.

Now smile with the sense of easy completion and enjoy!