Table of Contents
The short answer
Most doors that stick, rub or will not latch have not changed shape. They have moved. A hinge screw has worked loose, the door has dropped a few millimetres on its top hinge, and the corner furthest from the hinges now catches the frame or drags on the floor. A kitchen or wardrobe door that hangs lower than its neighbour is the same story: the hinge has slipped out of adjustment, or its screws have lost their grip in the board. So the first tool to pick up is a screwdriver, not a plane.
Three fixes are safe for a resident to try: tightening the hinge screws by hand, turning the adjustment screws on a concealed cabinet hinge, and replacing one short screw in a room door's top hinge with a longer one that reaches sound timber in the frame. If the door still sticks after those, the job is carpentry: planing an edge, re-hanging the door, replacing worn hinges or rebuilding a fixing that has torn out. One kind of damage is not repaired at all. Chipboard or MDF that has swollen from water, which is common under sinks and in bathroom vanity units, does not go back, and the panel or door is replaced.
IHR Dream Cleaning does this work under its carpentry and furniture assembly service, which covers door and hinge adjustment, cabinet and drawer repair and shelf fitting. There is no published price for it. Each job is quoted from photos or after a free inspection, by the number of items and how involved each one is, and you have the figure before any work starts.
Read the door before you touch a screw
Look at the door closed, from the side it opens towards. A well-hung door has an even gap, about the thickness of a coin, down both sides and across the top. Where that gap pinches shut or opens wide is where the fault is.
A room door hangs from its top hinge and leans on its bottom one, so the top hinge's screws loosen first, and a millimetre of slack there becomes several at the far corner. That is why most sticking doors rub in the same two places: high and low on the handle side.
- Close the door and follow the gap all the way round. Note where it narrows to nothing and where it widens.
- Look for rub marks: shiny or scuffed paint on the door edge or the frame, or an arc scratched on the floor.
- Open the door halfway, hold the handle and lift gently. If the door rises and a hinge leaf moves against the frame, the screws are loose or their holes are worn.
- Check each hinge. A screw head that stands proud, a missing screw or a dark line of dust under the hinge all point to movement.
- Watch the latch as the door closes. If it strikes the metal plate on the frame above or below the opening, the door and the frame no longer line up.
- Ask when it started. A door that tightened in the humid months and eased afterwards is swelling. One that has got steadily worse whatever the weather is loose or worn.
| What you see | Likely cause | First step |
|---|---|---|
| Rubs at the top corner, handle side | Top hinge loose; the door has dropped | Tighten the top hinge screws |
| Drags on the floor, handle side | The same | Tighten, then try a longer screw |
| Tight along the whole handle edge | Humidity swelling, or paint build-up | Wait for drier air before any planing |
| Springs back open near the frame | Hinges set too deep, or screw heads proud | Carpenter |
| Closes but will not latch | Latch and strike plate out of line | Put the hinges right first |
| Cabinet door lower than its neighbour | Hinge out of adjustment, or plate loose | Adjust the hinge |
| Cabinet door puffed or flaking at the edge | Water in the board | Stop the water; replace the part |
Why doors stick, drop and stop latching
Nearly every case in a home comes down to one of five things. The first is the one to rule out before any other, because it is the cheapest to cure and the easiest to miss.
Loose and stripped screws
Every time a door is opened, its weight works on the hinge screws. Over the years they back out a fraction, the hinge leaf lifts off the frame and the door drops. Tightening cures it once. If a screw turns without ever going tight, the wood fibres in the hole have been chewed away and the screw has nothing left to grip. That is a stripped hole, and more force will not help.
Cabinet hinges fail the same way, and sooner. The screws are short, and a typical kitchen or wardrobe unit is chipboard or MDF with a thin decorative face, which is weaker than solid timber. It holds a screw well until the screw is wrenched sideways, by a door swung hard against its stop or a child hanging on it. Then the hole crumbles.
Humidity and swelling
Timber takes up moisture from humid air and gives it back to dry air, swelling and shrinking across its width as it does so. Paint slows the exchange without stopping it, and the top and bottom edges of a door are often left bare by the painter, which is where moisture gets in fastest. In Abu Dhabi the humid months are the test. A bathroom door takes steam on one face and air-conditioned air on the other, and a home left closed with the AC off over a summer trip often comes back with doors that have tightened in their frames.
In solid or veneered timber this swelling reverses. Run the AC normally for a week or two and most doors ease. That is the reason not to plane a door in the damp season: take off what it needs in August and it will show a wide gap in winter. Whether the AC should stay on while you are away is discussed in the guide to reopening a home after summer travel.
Worn and failing hinges
A hinge is a pin turning in a set of knuckles. On a heavy door, or one that has run dry for years, the pin and knuckles wear and the door sags even with every screw tight. The signs are a fine black dust around the knuckles, a squeak that comes back soon after oiling, and visible play when you lift the door.
Concealed cabinet hinges wear differently. The spring that holds the door shut weakens or snaps, and the door will not stay closed. On a soft-close hinge, the small damper that slows the last part of the swing loses its resistance, and the door starts to slam or stops short of closing. Neither part can be serviced, so the hinge or its clip-on damper is changed.
A latch and strike plate out of line
The latch is the sprung tongue in the edge of the door. The strike plate is the metal plate on the frame that it clicks into. When a door drops by three millimetres the latch arrives three millimetres low and hits metal instead of the opening, and you have to lift the handle or lean on the door to make it catch. Scratch marks on the plate show where the latch has been landing.
The usual cause is the door and not the plate, so put the hinges right first. If the gap is even all round and the latch still misses, the frame has moved, and a carpenter shifts the plate by the few millimetres needed or eases its opening. A latch that has worn out, a lock that is failing or a key that will not turn is a fault in the lock itself, and belongs with the locksmith service, which lists latch repairs.
Leaks and, rarely, pests
Two causes need more than a carpenter. A frame or door that has swollen at the bottom only, beside a bathroom or a kitchen, may be soaking up water from a leak. Look for a stained skirting board and lifting paint, and read the signs of a hidden water leak before anyone planes anything. In a ground-floor villa, a frame that sounds hollow when tapped near the floor should be checked against the signs of termites. Both are uncommon next to a loose hinge, but planing a door that is wet or being eaten only hides the evidence.
Three fixes you can safely make yourself
All three need a hand screwdriver that fits the screw head properly, and nothing else. Leave the cordless drill in its case: it over-tightens in a second and strips the hole you were trying to save. If a screw head is already chewed, leave it for the carpenter, who can still get it out.
1. Tighten the hinge screws
Start here whatever the symptom. If a screw never goes tight, leave it snug and move on to the longer screw.
- Open the door to about a right angle and slide a folded magazine or a thin wedge under the handle-side corner, so the door's weight is carried and the hinge sits flat against the frame.
- Tighten every screw in the top hinge by hand, frame side first, then the door side. Stop when the head is seated.
- Do the same for the other hinges, take the wedge out, and close the door slowly to check the gap and the latch.
2. Put one longer screw into the frame
The screws supplied with most hinges are short and hold only in the outer part of the frame. A longer screw of the same thickness passes through the worn fibres of a stripped hole and bites into fresh timber deeper in. Used in the top hinge, on the frame side, it also draws the hinge back towards the frame and lifts the dropped corner of the door.
Take one screw out of the frame side of the top hinge and take it with you to the hardware shop. Buy a wood screw of the same thickness and head shape, roughly twice as long. The head has to sit flush in the hinge; one that stands proud stops the hinge closing and makes the door bind. Drive it by hand. It should get steadily harder to turn and then stop.
Two cautions. If the frame is metal, as it is on some apartment doors, the hinge is held by machine screws and a wood screw is the wrong part, so leave it alone. If the longer screw meets something hard and stops early, it has reached the masonry behind the frame: back it out and use one a little shorter.
3. Adjust a concealed cabinet hinge
Kitchen and wardrobe doors hang on concealed hinges: a round cup sunk into the back of the door, an arm, and a mounting plate screwed to the inside of the cabinet. They are made to be adjusted. Open the door and look at the arm. Most hinges give you three movements.
| Movement | Which screw | What it corrects |
|---|---|---|
| Side to side | On the arm, nearest the door | An uneven gap between doors; a door that leans |
| In and out | On the arm, nearest the cabinet back | A door that stands proud or rubs the cabinet edge |
| Up and down | The two plate screws, or a cam on the plate | A door higher or lower than its neighbour |
How to make the adjustment
Work in small steps and check after each one. If the mounting plate rocks when you press it, or one of its screws turns without tightening, no adjustment will hold: the board behind it has given way and the fixing needs repair. If the door comes away in your hand, the hinge has not broken. Many modern hinges clip on to their plates. Hook the front of the arm on to the plate and press the back down until it clicks.
- Close the door and decide what is wrong: too low, leaning, or standing out from its neighbour.
- Support the door with one hand. Turn one screw a quarter-turn, close the door and look. Makes differ, so let the door show you which way each screw moves it.
- To move the whole door sideways, turn the side screw by the same amount on both hinges. To straighten a door that leans, adjust the top hinge one way and the bottom hinge the other.
- For height, loosen the plate screws on both hinges just enough for the door to slide, set it level with its neighbour, and retighten while you hold it there.
Squeaks and soft-close hinges
A squeak is a dry hinge pin. One drop of light machine oil at the top of each knuckle, worked in by swinging the door, is enough. Wipe off what runs. Cooking oil goes sticky and holds dust.
Do not lubricate a soft-close hinge: the damper is sealed, and oil on the outside only collects kitchen grease. Some have a small switch on the hinge body that turns the damping off for a light door. If one door in a run has started to slam, check that its switch has not been knocked before you assume the hinge has failed.
What to leave alone
Each of these can turn a short repair into a larger one. Planing belongs on the list too, and has its own section below.
- Taking a room door off its hinges alone. A solid door is heavier than it looks and awkward to re-hang single-handed.
- The front door of an apartment. In a tower it is often a fire-rated door with a closer and seals, and it should not be trimmed, drilled or re-fitted without the building's management knowing.
- Fatter screws, glue or filler forced into a worn hole in chipboard. They split the board or set the plate in the wrong place, and leave less to repair.
Cabinet doors and drawers: when adjustment will not hold
A cabinet door that keeps dropping after you have adjusted it has a fixing problem, not an adjustment problem. There are three places to look. Drawers, which fail in their own way, come last.
The mounting plate has pulled out of the cabinet side
This is the common one. The two screws that hold the plate have torn their holes, and the plate shifts each time the door swings. A carpenter rebuilds the fixing: the holes are plugged with glued timber and re-drilled, or a repair plate is fitted that spreads the load on to sound board around the damage. Moving the hinge up or down to find fresh board is not an option by itself, because the cup in the door decides where the hinge has to sit.
The hinge cup has broken out of the door
On the door side, the hinge sits in a round recess close to the edge. A door forced open past its stop, or caught by a drawer front, can crack the thin strip of board between the recess and the edge. A small crack can be glued and reinforced with a repair plate. A door with a piece missing is normally replaced, and the question becomes whether a matching door can be found or made.
The hinge is the wrong type, or worn out
Concealed hinges are not interchangeable. They are made for a door that fully covers the cabinet edge, half covers it or sits inside the frame, and the arm is cranked differently for each. The cup is most often 35 millimetres across, but not always, and mounting plates differ between makes. A replacement has to match all of that, which is why a carpenter asks for a close photo of the hinge, open and closed, before the visit. If one soft-close hinge on a door has failed, change both on that door so that it closes evenly.
Drawers that drop or jam
Drawers fail at their runners. A runner that has bent or lost a roller lets the drawer drop at the front or jam halfway. Broken or misaligned runners are replaced or re-aligned so the drawer slides properly again. They are part of the same cabinet repair, so add them to the list.
Swollen board is replaced, not repaired
Chipboard and MDF are wood particles and fibres pressed together with resin under a sealed face. While the face and the edge strip are intact, the board shrugs off a splash. Once water gets in, through a chipped edge, an unsealed cut-out or a screw hole, the core soaks it up and swells, and it does not shrink back when it dries. The swollen part is thicker, soft and crumbly. The face bubbles, the edge strip peels, and screws no longer hold. No filler, clamp or paint restores it.
This is why a wet-area cabinet with swollen board is replaced and not patched. The usual places are the floor of the unit under a kitchen sink, the side panels next to a dishwasher or washing machine, the plinth along the floor where mop water sits, bathroom vanity units, and the bottom edge of a door near a shower. Abu Dhabi's hard water adds a tell-tale: a white crust on the fittings above the damage, where a slow drip has been evaporating for months.
Solid timber behaves differently: it swells in humid air and recovers. The test is simple. If the surface is still flat and hard and the door has only tightened in its frame, wait. If the surface has bubbled, the edge has puffed out or a fingernail sinks in, the board is finished.
Stop the water before the carpentry
A new panel fitted over a live leak will swell like the old one. Find the source first: a weeping trap or flexible hose under the sink, a failed seal around the basin or the worktop, a dishwasher connection, a shower screen that sends water on to the vanity unit. Joints under water pressure are plumbing work. The cabinet repair comes last, when the area is dry.
How much has to be replaced
Often less than people fear. Cabinets are built from separate panels, so a swollen base panel, a plinth, one side or one door can usually be changed without rebuilding the unit. Matching is the hard part. A plain white panel is easy to source. A wood-grain or coloured door from a kitchen that is ten years old may not be, and the choice is then a close match in a position that does not show, or a new set of doors for that run.
Replacing a panel is more than an adjustment, so describe it when you book, and we will confirm the scope before the visit. Send a photo of the whole unit, one of the damage close up and one of an undamaged door for the finish, with the width, height and thickness of the damaged part.
In a rented home, report swollen board in writing, with dated photos, as soon as you see it. Who arranges and pays for the repair depends on the maintenance clause in your tenancy contract and on what caused the damage, so read the contract and ask before you book anyone.
What a carpenter does that you should not
When tightening and adjusting have not solved it, three jobs remain on a room door. Each one changes the door or the frame for good, which is why they belong to someone who does them every week. Our service page puts the aim plainly: sticking, misaligned or squeaking interior doors are adjusted or re-hung without needing a full door replacement.
Planing a door that is too tight
Planing is the last resort for a door that still binds when its hinges are sound and the air is dry. The door is taken off, the tight edge is marked from the rub marks, and a little is removed, a millimetre or two at a time. Then the bare edge is sealed or painted again, because an unsealed edge drinks moisture and the door will be back where it started by the next summer. Hollow-core doors, which are a light frame with thin faces, have very little solid edge to remove, so planing can only do so much for them.
Re-hanging on the same hinges
A door can sit wrongly in its frame even with tight screws: too close to the hinge side, twisted against the stop, or bound because the hinge recesses were cut too deep or have filled with paint. The carpenter resets the hinges, deepening a recess, packing one out with a thin shim or moving a hinge to fresh timber, until the gap is even. Where a screw hole is beyond a longer screw, it is drilled out, plugged with a glued hardwood dowel and re-drilled. A door that swings open or closed by itself is the same job: its hinges are not in line with each other.
Replacing hinges
Worn hinges are replaced like for like and as a set: the same height, leaf width and screw pattern, so the new ones drop into the old recesses and no fresh timber shows. Three hinges carry a heavy or tall door more easily than two. On a bathroom door, stainless steel or brass hinges are worth asking for, because plain steel rusts in steam.
Handyman, carpenter or locksmith
If the list is mostly tightening and adjusting, with a shelf or a curtain rail besides, it is a handyman visit. If doors need re-hanging, hinges replacing, drawers repairing or board renewing, it is carpentry. If the lock or the key is at fault, it is locksmith work. Where each trade starts and stops is set out in what a handyman does. You do not have to get this right before you book. Describe what each door is doing, send the photos, and the scope is confirmed with you before the visit.
New furniture is the other half of the carpentry service. If wardrobes or beds are arriving in the same week, have them built on the same visit as the repairs. How long that takes and what to have ready is covered in the guide to flat-pack furniture assembly.
What to send, and what happens on the visit
Carpentry repairs are quoted by the number of items and how involved each one is, so a complete list matters as much as the photos. Try every door, wardrobe and drawer in the home before you book. It is easy to book for the one door that annoys you and remember four more after the carpenter has gone.
- For each room door: one photo of the whole door closed, one of the gap along the top, and one of each hinge.
- For each cabinet door or drawer: the hinge or runner close up, and the door both open and closed.
- Where it rubs, when it started and whether it is worse in humid weather.
- Whether the frame is wood or metal, and whether any part has snapped or pulled out.
- Whether the home is rented, and whether your building sets hours or asks for a permit for maintenance work.
On the day
Clear the floor around each door, and empty the shelf nearest the hinges in any cabinet being worked on. The technician brings the tools and carries common replacement fittings, so a missing screw or a stripped fitting rarely stops the job. Hardware that has to match, such as a particular hinge or a new panel, is agreed in the quote beforehand. As a guide from our service page, door and hinge repairs are generally quick, often 20 to 40 minutes a door.
Before leaving, the carpenter checks that each repaired door and drawer opens and closes correctly. Check them yourself while he is there: open and close each one slowly, and let go of each room door half open to see that it stays. If a part proves to be defective or cannot be made to hold, you are told so. It is not forced into a fix that will fail.
Quote and payment
There is no price list for carpentry repairs, because a single hinge and a kitchen of dropped doors are different jobs. You book online, reply to the confirmation email with your photos, and receive the price before the visit. What makes those photos useful is set out in how to get an accurate repair quote.
Payment is by card, online. You pay online from My bookings on this website once you have agreed the figure, and quoted jobs of AED 1,000 or more take a 30% advance by that link. Every price includes VAT.
Keeping doors and cabinets true
Most of the faults in this guide build up slowly, and a few habits slow them further. The wider yearly routine is in the home maintenance calendar.
- Twice a year, go round with a screwdriver and snug every hinge screw you can see. Loose hinges and sagging doors are worth fixing before they damage the frame.
- Keep heavy things off doors. Wet towels, shoe racks and over-door organisers load the top hinge all day.
- Let soft-close doors finish by themselves. Pushing against the damper wears it out.
- Wipe water off the unit fronts around the sink, wring the mop well before it goes along the plinths, and look under the sink every month or two for a damp base panel.
- Run the bathroom extractor during a shower and for a while after it, so that steam is not left sitting against the door.
- After any repaint, check that the top and bottom edges of each door were painted too.
Common questions
Can I plane or sand the door myself?
You can, and it is the one repair here that cannot be undone. The usual mistakes are planing a door whose real fault is a loose hinge, taking so much off the handle edge that the latch no longer reaches, and leaving the new edge bare so that it takes up moisture faster than before. If the hinges are sound, the air is dry and the door still binds, it is a carpenter's job, and a short one.
The screw just spins. What now?
On a room door with a timber frame, try the longer screw. On a cabinet, stop: a longer or fatter screw in chipboard usually breaks through the far face or splits the board, and the lasting repair is a plugged and re-drilled hole or a repair plate. Packing a hole with glued slivers of wood is the household version of that repair. It can hold in solid timber on a light door, and it does not hold in chipboard.
Should I replace one cabinet hinge or all of them?
Replace both hinges on the door that has failed and leave the others until they fail. If the hinges in an older kitchen are going one after another, having a whole run changed in one visit saves you several appointments, and because the work is quoted by the number of items you will know the figure in advance.
My sliding wardrobe door drags or has jumped its track. Is that the same job?
It is carpentry, but a different mechanism. Sliding doors run on small rollers in a floor track or hang from a top track. Fluff, sand and hair in the track are the first thing to clear, with a vacuum and a dry brush. If the door still drags, a roller has worn, cracked or slipped out of adjustment. Large mirrored doors are heavy and need two people to lift out safely, so leave them where they are and send a photo of the track and the rollers.
Does a sticking door mean the building is moving?
Almost never in a way that should worry you. Frames settle a little over the years, and one door at a time goes out of line. What deserves a second opinion is several doors on the same side of the home going out together, along with new cracks in the walls around them. That is a question for the landlord or the building's management, not for a carpenter.
Booking a carpentry visit
Make the list and take the photos first. Then book online or in the IHR Dream app, describe each door, drawer and panel in the notes, and reply to the confirmation email with the photos. We confirm the scope, any hardware and the price before the visit.
We work every day, 8 AM – 8 PM. The full scope is on the carpentry and furniture assembly page, the other trades are listed under maintenance and repairs, and you can book a visit online when your list is ready.
