There is little worse than spending hours hanging a door and then finding out that it sticks or that it is so badly fitted that it will not close. A door that opens and closes perfectly will reduce the level of stress in your DIY project if you learn how to fitting a door correctly before you pick up a screwdriver.
Clearance
The door is a different size than the opening, so trying to squeeze it into that opening is a recipe for disaster. Doors not only grow and shrink with temperature and humidity changes, but their square shape also makes them bind if the opening is too small. The opening of a door needs to be configured for its diagonal measurement, rather than its face when you start swinging it outward. The thicker the door, the harder it may be to close it properly. To solve these problems, allowing 5/16 to 1/8 inch clearance on each side of the door is usually sufficient.
Material of the door and its condition
Door jambs that fit into doors in February might not even fit into jambs by August. Because the door is made up of material that absorbs moisture combined with humidity, it grows in width. Although this problem occurs much more severely in solid wood doors, it can be seen in materials other than wood as well. Fitting your doors during the peak of summer is the best time if you can be flexible. You can install the door with a small clearance if it’s hot and humid.
Look at hinges properly
It is imperative that a fitting a door has sufficient clearance and is oriented squarely with the door opening to function properly. Hinge faces that are not perpendicular to the opening can cause the door not to close fully before it closes if they are cocked in one or the other direction. Forcing the door can damage the hinges. To prevent this problem, be careful to make the notch for the hinges as flat and consistent as possible.
Solutions
Typically, the easiest things to do if a door is sticking are to decrease the size of the door, expand the opening, or set the hinges more deeply into the side of the door. The easiest solution is to use a simple hand plane to reduce the size of the door by removing a bit of wood from the side opposite the hinges. Remove the knob plate from the door first if you have to remove wood from its length. This will prevent you from hitting it on the ground plane.
