How to Troubleshoot a Door that Sticks

Sticking doors are annoying and, often, a door is the first experience someone has in a new place, which makes beautiful and functional entries and doorways incredibly important to a business. If your commercial wood door is sticking, rubbing, or not latching properly, the problem usually isn’t the door itself. 

Below, we’ll discuss one of the most common causes of sticking doors and walk you through how to fix it.

Do you prefer a video tutorial? Check out our Troubleshooting a Sticking Door video below.

Installation has been triple-checked. The frame is properly level, plumb, and square, and the door is hung. It sounds like a perfect and smooth installation. Then, the door closes and the problem appears. It’s so tight at the top of the frame that the door is sticking, making it difficult to open or close, and potentially damaging that brand-new office door. 

So, how do you fix it? First, identify the problem. So, how do you fix it? First, identify the problem. While the initial instinct might be to place blame on the door, it’s not typically the answer. What's next, then? The frame, or the hinges themselves? It's unlikely.

The most common problem isn't caused by the door, the frame, or the hinge, but an interaction between all three. Commercial hollow metal frames have five circular bulbs, or dimples, on the frame, located under the hinges. These bumps, shown below, affect the way hinges work.

These bumps can push on the hinge and cause behavior like sticking. Now that we've identified the most likely problem with the installation, we can move on to fixing it!

Step One: Remove only the top hinge leaf from the frame. Leave the hinge leaf on the door.

Step Two: Identify the circular bumps on the door frame. There should be two sets of circular bumps. A set of two bumps can be found nearest the frame stop, and a set of three bumps can be found closest to the frame edge. For the next step, you'll need the set of three.