Residential door installation and repair covers exterior and interior doors in homes, including entry doors, frames, hinges, sills, weather seals and the locks fitted to them. Accurate Security & Lock corrects the alignment of the opening rather than fitting new hardware to a door that will not shut, serving Illinois and Wisconsin.
Most door problems in a home are alignment problems that have been allowed to become security problems. A door that has to be lifted to latch, or that needs a shoulder to close, is not sealing, is wearing its hinges into the frame, and is putting load on a deadbolt that was never designed to take it.
We install and repair exterior and interior doors across Illinois and Wisconsin, and we fix the alignment as part of the job rather than fitting a new lock onto a door that will not shut.
| Approach | What it involves | Right when | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adjust in place | Hinge screws, blade shims, strike position, sweep settings | The door and frame are structurally sound | Chasing the same adjustment every season means the opening is still moving |
| Repair the frame | Re-anchor jamb legs, repair or move hinges, rebuild a sill | Racking or a pulled anchor is the actual fault | Cosmetic patching hides the fault and fails within a year |
| Replace the leaf only | New door hung in the existing frame and hardware | The frame is plumb and sound, the leaf is rotted or delaminated | The new leaf inherits every fault the old frame had |
| Replace the prehung unit | New door and frame as a set | Rotted jamb, badly racked frame, or a change of door type | Trim and interior finishes have to be made good |
| Hardware only | Strike reinforcement, deadbolt and hinges | Alignment is fine and the weakness is the hardware | Pointless on a door that does not close correctly |
Why a door fitted in fall binds in spring
Most residential door faults are not door faults. They are movement in the opening, and in this region the movement is seasonal and predictable. A door fitted in a dry October can bind by the following spring without anything being wrong with the door itself.
Clay soils and the water table: much of Northern Illinois sits on heavy clay. Clay swells when it takes on water and shrinks as it dries, and the soil under a foundation footing or a garage slab moves with it. A slab that lifts a fraction of an inch in spring lifts the threshold with it, and the door that cleared it in October now drags on the sill. The door has not changed; the floor has.
Freeze-thaw on the threshold and the frame: water sitting against a threshold, a stoop or a brick mold freezes, expands, and works the material loose. Over a few winters that shows up as a lifted sill, a cracked sealant line, or a frame leg that has moved outward at the bottom. Indoors, the door then latches at the top and misses at the bottom, or the reverse.
Moisture in the door and the frame: a wood door takes on moisture at the edges and swells across its width, which is why binding is worst in humid summer weather. Steel doors do not swell, but their frames do. Any door that has been trimmed once will not tolerate being trimmed every year; at some point the opening is the problem and the door is the messenger.
[Insert source: regional soils, water table and frost depth data for Northern Illinois supporting seasonal foundation movement]
Related:Wikipedia: door
The faults we find, and how we correct them
Hinge screws that have stripped their holes are the most common cause of a door that sags and will not latch. The top hinge carries most of the load, and the screws in a softwood jamb eventually wallow out their holes. The fix is not a longer screw into the same ruined hole. The hole is drilled out clean, a hardwood dowel or a proper hinge-repair plug is glued in, and the screw is re-driven into sound material. Where the jamb is too far gone, the hinge is moved to fresh timber and the mortise recut.
A frame that has racked is the opening going out of square, so the door binds at diagonally opposite corners. It comes from settlement, a failing header, or a frame that was never shimmed and anchored correctly. Measure both diagonals of the opening and check the jamb legs for plumb; cracks in the drywall above the corners are a strong hint. Minor racking can be taken out by adjusting hinges and repositioning the strike. Significant racking needs the frame re-anchored, and we will say which one you have.
A threshold that has lifted: most thresholds and sills are adjustable or replaceable. A sill that has lifted because the slab below heaved needs the cause addressed, not just the sill. An adjustable sill that has settled can be raised, and the door bottom trimmed or a sweep replaced to match. Never trim the bottom of a door to clear a lifted threshold without checking that the weather seal still contacts afterwards — the door will close and let water and air straight through.
Latch and strike misalignment: the latch is a spring-loaded wedge that relies on a ramped strike to pull the door the last fraction of an inch. If the strike is mortised too shallow, set too far in or out, or filled with paint, the latch never fully seats. In a correctly set opening the door pulls itself closed with a light push. If you have to pull it, the strike is wrong even when the latch eventually catches.
How a misaligned door loads the deadbolt
This is what turns a nuisance into a repair bill. A misaligned door gets closed by pulling and pushing it until the latch catches, and everything that follows lands on the deadbolt. A bolt forced into a shifted strike loads the cylinder tailpiece, the bolt housing and the strike screws every time the door is locked.
It wears the mechanism out early, makes the key hard to turn, and on a cheaper lock eventually breaks the tailpiece. Worse, a bolt that has to be leaned on is a bolt that gets left unlocked. Alignment comes first, hardware second. Fitting a good deadbolt to a door that does not close is paying to fix the wrong end of the problem.
Adjust, refit or replace: how the decision is made
There are five routes through a residential door fault, and they are not interchangeable. The table below sets out what each one involves, when it is the right answer, and the warning sign that it is being used to avoid the real fault.
One correction is worth stating separately, because it affects homes rather than a commercial opening: on a fire-rated door in a residential building, the entire assembly has to work together, including the closer and the hinges. Fire-rated door assemblies and their hardware are covered on their own service page.
What a residential door job should include
We quote the repair before we quote the replacement, and we will happily do the smaller job if it solves the problem. Every door we fit is adjusted on site, and we ask you to operate it yourself before we pack up. If it does not feel right to you, it is not finished.
- The opening is checked for plumb and square, with the diagonals measured rather than eyeballed.
- The door latches on a light push, with no lift, shove or shoulder.
- The deadbolt throws fully by hand, with no drag at the end of its travel.
- The strike is anchored into framing, not just into the jamb face.
- The weather seal contacts the door along its full perimeter when closed.
- You have operated the door yourself and it felt right to you.
What to remember when a door starts to stick
What to hold on to the next time a door in the house starts to stick, sag or refuse to latch.
- Most binding is seasonal movement in the opening — clay soils, freeze-thaw and moisture — not a failed door.
- Stripped hinge screws are the most common cause of a sagging door, and the fix is a glued plug into sound timber, not a longer screw.
- A door that will not latch forces the deadbolt to take the closing load and wears the lock out early. Fix alignment first.
- Measure both frame diagonals and check the jambs for plumb before deciding to replace anything.
- Do not trim a door bottom to clear a lifted threshold without confirming the weather seal still contacts.
Service areas for residential doors
We cover every town on our list across Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. These are a few of them.
- Residential Doors in Crystal Lake, IL
- Residential Doors in Delavan, WI
- Residential Doors in East Dundee, IL
- Residential Doors in East Troy, WI
- Residential Doors in Elgin, IL
- Residential Doors in Elkhorn, WI
Frequently asked questions
My door sticks only in summer. Is that a repair or a replacement?
Almost always a repair. Seasonal binding points to moisture movement in the frame or the slab rather than a failed door. Adjusting hinges, correcting the strike or relieving a high spot on the jamb usually resolves it. Replacement is only justified when the door itself has swelled, delaminated or rotted.
Can you fit a new door into an existing frame?
Frequently yes, and it is the more economical route when the frame is sound and square. We measure the existing opening and match a door to it. If the frame is racked or the jamb is rotted we will tell you, because hanging a new door in a bad frame simply transfers the problem.
Do you repair interior doors as well as exterior?
Yes — interior doors, pocket doors, bifold and closet doors. The same alignment logic applies, and an interior door that will not latch is usually a hinge or strike issue rather than anything more serious.
Should I replace the door or repair it if it will not close properly?
Repair first, unless the leaf or the frame is actually damaged. Most doors that will not close have a correctable fault: stripped hinge screws, a racked frame, a lifted sill, or a strike in the wrong position. We measure the opening and correct the alignment before quoting a replacement, and we will tell you plainly if the frame is too far gone to be worth repairing.