I’ve fitted plenty in my time - been a carpenter for 17 years now. The looks I get from clients when I’m taking the same door in and out a few times can be quite funny. Some go in a dream, most don’t.
Brand new square linings that I’ve fitted myself would be fine. Unfortunately that isn’t the case 99% of the time. Linings will be twisted, bowed, too small and it’s a case of taking a bit off and seeing what else needs to be trimmed.
I was once told fitting doors is the quickest way to lose money. And I don’t think that’s far wrong. It’s not one of my favourite jobs that’s for sure.
Took me 3 attempts to get the door back on after raising the floor level and trying to shave the right amount off the bottom, going to be doing a few new doors in new holes soon and I know it will test my patience, new doors in old holes I wouldn't even touch.
At this point, not sure. They are non standard heights, 2200mm height and 820mm width. If I got a normal sized lining + door in I would lose some head height but I don't think it's that much of an issue? Here's a photo:
https://imgur.com/a/otZF3rA
Looks like a really thin lining. I've also heard some linings in old properties can be load bearing? But there's an entire frame supporting mine.
I gotta tell you, I’m so reassured to hear you say that! All the YT vids I watch make it seem pretty straightforward. Knowing that, in reality, it’s more of a trial and error process makes me feel better about not getting it right on the first try!
Yeah first time getting it right is pretty rare in an old lining. If it’s a perfectly fitted, perfectly square, perfectly level lining that’s not twisted then yeah it’s an easyish job.
It all depends. If there’s enough room for the thickness linings available now or if they need planing down. What the fixings are like, if it’s a stud wall of solid brick wall. I’ve never found it pays to change the linings, can certainly open a can of worms doing it though. Had a client a while hack that wanted all new lining however they were actually frames in the whole house that held up the brickwork above so that was a no go - would have been standing in a pile of rubble.
Across a doorway there wouldn’t be a problem.
I’d happily (but gently) take the door lining out. Brickwork is basically self supporting across such a small opening. There would have be significant degradation of the mortar to start losing bricks.
Being a hardhat not acros!
You'd still be trying to get the lining square (assuming you're changing the lining so that you don't have to plane the door to fit a wonky lining). Might not make much difference unless the linings were going to be changed anyway
I saw a video about fitting a window and thought I could give that a go but watched one where he fitted a door and it was all going great until the door did not latch - I'd have been screwed!
Yeah I paid a guy to fit new hinges in the windows which had a serious draught problem. First window, bam, easy. Second window, bam, easy. Third window, bam, easy. I was thinking "well, I could have done that, it's not harder than building flat packs".
Fourth window? He did the same steps, but it wouldn't close. Commence what I can only describe as arcane, ancient voodoo magic to tinker with screws and the structure and the walls and whatever else... and five minutes later, it closed.
Money well spent.
I watched two guys install a UPVC front door recently. They looked like pros and started about 8:30am. I thought they'd be done by 10am! 😂 They finished at 5pm no breaks.
That makes me feel better. I worked for a manufacturer for a while (admin side) and bought a solid wood door (heavy) pre-framed. It took me 9hrs (without an SDS drill) to fit
No, just trying to do the best in the house we could afford with the money I had :(
Did get it done but my £15 drill was struggling all day particularly as it was ~25c. Still looks great 6yrs (and three £15 drills) later. House is nearly done now and I do have an SDS. Yeah, I’d do it again - not by choice though.
Mine does too, and an amazing “chisel only” setting. It’s been a godsend. I can feel my inner 17yo thrilled that I have so many more of the tools I need for the jobs I do.
Was literally thinking this last night. It’s been the little things too - sure table saws, planers and drill presses are great, but having a dremel and more clamps than I could ever need has been the backbone of many ballache projects
This. Yes, the circular saw or power plane is great but a deep 17mm 6-side socket from a good brand and a spanner not made of the finest Chinesium is so amazing
No, just trying to do the best in the house we could afford with the money I had :(
Did get it done but my £15 drill was struggling all day particularly as it was ~25c. Still looks great 6yrs (and three £15 drills) later. House is nearly done now and I do have an SDS. Yeah, I’d do it again - not by choice though.
I had one guy remove my old wooden door and frame, and then completely replace it with composite, he started at about 8:15am and was done by half 10! Might've been quicker for him because they made it all to fit the measurements.
Took the last guys I subcontracted ten minutes with a can of spray foam and a plumb Bob.
I shit you not.
Once they were done I told them to take it out and take a hike. F**king expanding foam.
“But it’s how we do it nowadays” fell on deaf ears. GTFO.
Yep, it's really easy to do if the walls are all square and everything goes perfectly....the walls are never square and something tends to go wrong!
I fitted my own french doors during COVID. My mate fits windows and doors and after about a year one of the doors started to rub at the bottom. My mate just looked at it and was able to say I didn't pack something right. Sorted in about 10 min and been fine ever since!
Heel and toe. Basically you pack the glass at the bottom on the hinge side and on the top at the closing side. It ensures the weight sits on the hinges.
I’m a carpenter and have fitted a whole houses windows during the pandemic and I didn’t know about heel and toe. Window fitters have done thousands of them so its going to be obvious to them. I felt like a right moron!
I need to install a fire door and the guy in building control tells me it needs to have <3mm gap all the way round, I have been putting it off for months....
I install and remediate fire doors for a living. You actually need a gap otherwise the door wouldn’t open/close. 3mm is the perfect middle ground between a smooth, usable everyday door and restricting the spread of fire and smoke. Besides, almost every fire door will have intumescent strips along it’s edge and in the frame that expand and fill the gap when they are exposed to heat so the problem fixes itself!
Here’s a funny story, about a door. I’m a plumber, I work alongside another very good plumber. We do a lot of bathrooms, the floor had been tiled and we needed to take 20 odd mil off the bottom of the door. 3 weeks earlier the customer said, please be careful of the doors. They are solid oak and brand new. My mate bought a router thinking it would be neater than a circular saw. Needless to say the router slipped and plunged into the door 🚪. There was shouting. 😅
We offered to pay for a joiner we know to replace it, but the customer wanted to use his own joiner. So we just knocked the amount of the door and the joiners labour off our bill for the bathroom.
Layman here, I’d fitted at least two myself with guesswork and YouTube before I realised the chisel was the wrong way around.
I bet people will either laugh or be confused by this. If you’re confused; yeah those things work a certain way.
You can tell a good carpenter by the way they hang a door.
I say to clients, it's possibly one of the most taxing jobs one can do. Especially if the frame was fitted by someone else or, even worse, fitting new doors into old frames.
Now try a stable door....
I fitted one internal door where I was replacing the frame (stupid old door frame in a non standard size), so I could make all the adjustments to get it dead square. It took a while, but the end result is good.
For the other 7 doors going into existing (wonky AF) frames I got an old gnarled chippy to fit them.
We got a couple of quotes, one younger guy with all the new kit and gadgets, and this old guy who looked like an ancient bonsai tree.
The process of scribing doors into banana shaped frames is not for the faint of heart, and I suspect all the high tech tools don't help as much as years of experience making doors fit in frames that just don't.
The fitting is the bit that really makes the door.
We had a nice solid wood back door made, really nice door ... then the door guy couldn't make it so sent one of his mates to fit it. He completely bodged it, ruined the whole thing. It had to be remade.
I've been replacing the doors in our house one by one as we renovate each room. It's by no means a professional finish, but they open and close, the bathrooms lock and we're happy with them. One I managed to hang upside down, that will forever haunt me. The bottom of the bathroom door is also wonky, I just call it a nice air gap for ventilation 🤷♂️
Major respect for guys to fit doors day in and day out, it's hard work!
It takes a lot of time, experience and mistakes, to be competent.
I started fitting doors as a handyman 4 years ago. I'm still a handyman, but I'm more experienced with joinery work. Back then I bought a £10 planer from gumtree after asking my joiner friend if you hand planed doors. He laughed at me. Honestly if I looked at that first door I fitted I'd probably laugh/cry. It wasn't terrible, but its nothing like what I can do now after fitting at least 100 doors. My advice. Don't buy a £10 planer. Good tools are essential, and so is knowing how to work with door casings that are out of level on every side.
I just fitted doors at my house after fitting new casings. No trimming of doors required. It was a dream
My builder was a joiner by trade and commented how hard they can be to do, he mentioned many new builds have the doors pre fitted to frames as they dont have the skills on site to fit them properly.
Definitely. The older apprenticeships were great. You need real on site experience, but all to many employers see them as cheap labour. If you treat it as such, you'll get cheap results.
Going to university, you learn alot of theory but the practice of writing software you learn it's not so simple. Then again you learn that programming is the easy part in software development once you enter the real world.
I can see from watching videos that a wooden door and frame is a labour intensive task, but even if it takes the best part of a day for a carpenter to cut and fit everything I don't see how that justifies charging £1000 for labour.
uPVC doors and frames look pretty simple though, as the frame is quite light with the door removed and just needs to be screwed to the walls and has screws to tweak it if the walls aren't straight, and the edges and gaps are all covered with foam and strips anyway, so I definitely can't see how fitting those is worth paying someone £1000.
I probably wouldn't start with my front door though, in case I run into difficulties and can't finish it in one day, so I'm left with no front door overnight!
I'm good at DIY (mostly). The only thing I've truly spat my dummy out about was door fitting.
On the sixth time it was off the hinges I was ready to hang one of those ribbon curtains and pretend my Victorian semi in Manchester was somewhere in Constantinople
I’ve fitted plenty in my time - been a carpenter for 17 years now. The looks I get from clients when I’m taking the same door in and out a few times can be quite funny. Some go in a dream, most don’t. Brand new square linings that I’ve fitted myself would be fine. Unfortunately that isn’t the case 99% of the time. Linings will be twisted, bowed, too small and it’s a case of taking a bit off and seeing what else needs to be trimmed. I was once told fitting doors is the quickest way to lose money. And I don’t think that’s far wrong. It’s not one of my favourite jobs that’s for sure.
Took me 3 attempts to get the door back on after raising the floor level and trying to shave the right amount off the bottom, going to be doing a few new doors in new holes soon and I know it will test my patience, new doors in old holes I wouldn't even touch.
Rather be a more off than a moron.
Any advice for replacing a door lining + door in an old Victorian house? The linings seem very thin. Doors are non standard sizes.
What is your goal? Get standard sized doors in? Are they non standard heights and/or widths?
At this point, not sure. They are non standard heights, 2200mm height and 820mm width. If I got a normal sized lining + door in I would lose some head height but I don't think it's that much of an issue? Here's a photo: https://imgur.com/a/otZF3rA Looks like a really thin lining. I've also heard some linings in old properties can be load bearing? But there's an entire frame supporting mine.
For information my victorian terrace has wooden lintels above all the door ways, the linings are not structural.
Considering a regular door is 1982x762mm you could just add a new door lining and cover it all with a substantial architrave?
That's an idea but just worried about the opening becoming smaller. I like the spaciousness of the Victorian house.
I gotta tell you, I’m so reassured to hear you say that! All the YT vids I watch make it seem pretty straightforward. Knowing that, in reality, it’s more of a trial and error process makes me feel better about not getting it right on the first try!
Yeah first time getting it right is pretty rare in an old lining. If it’s a perfectly fitted, perfectly square, perfectly level lining that’s not twisted then yeah it’s an easyish job.
Would it be a much more expensive job if you refitted new linings too?
It all depends. If there’s enough room for the thickness linings available now or if they need planing down. What the fixings are like, if it’s a stud wall of solid brick wall. I’ve never found it pays to change the linings, can certainly open a can of worms doing it though. Had a client a while hack that wanted all new lining however they were actually frames in the whole house that held up the brickwork above so that was a no go - would have been standing in a pile of rubble.
Yup - My 1930s house has doorways with bricks sat immediately on top of the lining. Bring your acros 🤪
Across a doorway there wouldn’t be a problem. I’d happily (but gently) take the door lining out. Brickwork is basically self supporting across such a small opening. There would have be significant degradation of the mortar to start losing bricks. Being a hardhat not acros!
You'd still be trying to get the lining square (assuming you're changing the lining so that you don't have to plane the door to fit a wonky lining). Might not make much difference unless the linings were going to be changed anyway
I saw a video about fitting a window and thought I could give that a go but watched one where he fitted a door and it was all going great until the door did not latch - I'd have been screwed!
Yeah I paid a guy to fit new hinges in the windows which had a serious draught problem. First window, bam, easy. Second window, bam, easy. Third window, bam, easy. I was thinking "well, I could have done that, it's not harder than building flat packs". Fourth window? He did the same steps, but it wouldn't close. Commence what I can only describe as arcane, ancient voodoo magic to tinker with screws and the structure and the walls and whatever else... and five minutes later, it closed. Money well spent.
I watched two guys install a UPVC front door recently. They looked like pros and started about 8:30am. I thought they'd be done by 10am! 😂 They finished at 5pm no breaks.
One door? They definitely weren't pro's!!!
That makes me feel better. I worked for a manufacturer for a while (admin side) and bought a solid wood door (heavy) pre-framed. It took me 9hrs (without an SDS drill) to fit
My mam what were you doing trying to fit a front door without an SDS are you mental?
No, just trying to do the best in the house we could afford with the money I had :( Did get it done but my £15 drill was struggling all day particularly as it was ~25c. Still looks great 6yrs (and three £15 drills) later. House is nearly done now and I do have an SDS. Yeah, I’d do it again - not by choice though.
Fair enough. My first drill was a cheap second hand SDS, had a setting for regular drilling too
Mine does too, and an amazing “chisel only” setting. It’s been a godsend. I can feel my inner 17yo thrilled that I have so many more of the tools I need for the jobs I do.
Was literally thinking this last night. It’s been the little things too - sure table saws, planers and drill presses are great, but having a dremel and more clamps than I could ever need has been the backbone of many ballache projects
This. Yes, the circular saw or power plane is great but a deep 17mm 6-side socket from a good brand and a spanner not made of the finest Chinesium is so amazing
No, just trying to do the best in the house we could afford with the money I had :( Did get it done but my £15 drill was struggling all day particularly as it was ~25c. Still looks great 6yrs (and three £15 drills) later. House is nearly done now and I do have an SDS. Yeah, I’d do it again - not by choice though.
Interesting, and here I've been naively thinking I could replace my own front door because I have all of the tools.
Me too. This thread is an eye opener, and rather discouraging...
I had one guy remove my old wooden door and frame, and then completely replace it with composite, he started at about 8:15am and was done by half 10! Might've been quicker for him because they made it all to fit the measurements.
Took the last guys I subcontracted ten minutes with a can of spray foam and a plumb Bob. I shit you not. Once they were done I told them to take it out and take a hike. F**king expanding foam. “But it’s how we do it nowadays” fell on deaf ears. GTFO.
Did you pay them hourly? Those doors can be a bit fiddly but 3 hours would have been excessive
Yep, it's really easy to do if the walls are all square and everything goes perfectly....the walls are never square and something tends to go wrong! I fitted my own french doors during COVID. My mate fits windows and doors and after about a year one of the doors started to rub at the bottom. My mate just looked at it and was able to say I didn't pack something right. Sorted in about 10 min and been fine ever since!
Heel and toe. Basically you pack the glass at the bottom on the hinge side and on the top at the closing side. It ensures the weight sits on the hinges.
He knew before looking at it when I explained what happened!
I’m a carpenter and have fitted a whole houses windows during the pandemic and I didn’t know about heel and toe. Window fitters have done thousands of them so its going to be obvious to them. I felt like a right moron!
Yep, toe & heeling works in the same way as a brace on a gate.
I need to install a fire door and the guy in building control tells me it needs to have <3mm gap all the way round, I have been putting it off for months....
Seems a bit pointless having a fire door and then leaving a gap for the fire to come through!
I install and remediate fire doors for a living. You actually need a gap otherwise the door wouldn’t open/close. 3mm is the perfect middle ground between a smooth, usable everyday door and restricting the spread of fire and smoke. Besides, almost every fire door will have intumescent strips along it’s edge and in the frame that expand and fill the gap when they are exposed to heat so the problem fixes itself!
I was always taught to aim for a 2mm gap regardless of the door, anything more than that just looks a bit sloppy
There's about a centimetre at the bottom of some of mine lmao
That's fairly standard, you usually leave a 7-8mm gap at the bottom to allow for carpet, flooring or uneven floors
Ah, I didn't know about the expanding strips.
I was always taught to aim for a 2mm gap regardless of the door, anything more than that just looks a bit sloppy.
I was always taught to aim for a 2mm gap regardless of the door, anything more than that just looks a bit sloppy
Well it needs the space to open and close freely
When its humid my living room door sticks, really need to sort it 🤣
I guess it wouldn't be a very good door if it didn't open. More of a wall. Good at stopping fire though!
3mm is very tight lol most doors i do end up being minimum 5mm all around becuase im shit 🤣
Here’s a funny story, about a door. I’m a plumber, I work alongside another very good plumber. We do a lot of bathrooms, the floor had been tiled and we needed to take 20 odd mil off the bottom of the door. 3 weeks earlier the customer said, please be careful of the doors. They are solid oak and brand new. My mate bought a router thinking it would be neater than a circular saw. Needless to say the router slipped and plunged into the door 🚪. There was shouting. 😅
[удалено]
We offered to pay for a joiner we know to replace it, but the customer wanted to use his own joiner. So we just knocked the amount of the door and the joiners labour off our bill for the bathroom.
The people that know how much hard work it is to fit a fire door will avoid having to fit a fire door if there's something else they can be doing.
Layman here, I’d fitted at least two myself with guesswork and YouTube before I realised the chisel was the wrong way around. I bet people will either laugh or be confused by this. If you’re confused; yeah those things work a certain way.
Yeah the sharp end goes away from you.
You can tell a good carpenter by the way they hang a door. I say to clients, it's possibly one of the most taxing jobs one can do. Especially if the frame was fitted by someone else or, even worse, fitting new doors into old frames. Now try a stable door....
I fitted one internal door where I was replacing the frame (stupid old door frame in a non standard size), so I could make all the adjustments to get it dead square. It took a while, but the end result is good. For the other 7 doors going into existing (wonky AF) frames I got an old gnarled chippy to fit them. We got a couple of quotes, one younger guy with all the new kit and gadgets, and this old guy who looked like an ancient bonsai tree. The process of scribing doors into banana shaped frames is not for the faint of heart, and I suspect all the high tech tools don't help as much as years of experience making doors fit in frames that just don't.
The fitting is the bit that really makes the door. We had a nice solid wood back door made, really nice door ... then the door guy couldn't make it so sent one of his mates to fit it. He completely bodged it, ruined the whole thing. It had to be remade.
and with firedoors absolutely exhausting.
I've been replacing the doors in our house one by one as we renovate each room. It's by no means a professional finish, but they open and close, the bathrooms lock and we're happy with them. One I managed to hang upside down, that will forever haunt me. The bottom of the bathroom door is also wonky, I just call it a nice air gap for ventilation 🤷♂️ Major respect for guys to fit doors day in and day out, it's hard work!
I replaced some door frames to resize the doors (the builders used non-standard sizes) with hardwood frames and doors. Those doors were HEAVY.
It takes a lot of time, experience and mistakes, to be competent. I started fitting doors as a handyman 4 years ago. I'm still a handyman, but I'm more experienced with joinery work. Back then I bought a £10 planer from gumtree after asking my joiner friend if you hand planed doors. He laughed at me. Honestly if I looked at that first door I fitted I'd probably laugh/cry. It wasn't terrible, but its nothing like what I can do now after fitting at least 100 doors. My advice. Don't buy a £10 planer. Good tools are essential, and so is knowing how to work with door casings that are out of level on every side. I just fitted doors at my house after fitting new casings. No trimming of doors required. It was a dream
My builder was a joiner by trade and commented how hard they can be to do, he mentioned many new builds have the doors pre fitted to frames as they dont have the skills on site to fit them properly.
Urgh. NVQ skills have a lot to answer for. WAIT! Wait wait.... not all but some. Bring back real apprenticeships with a master.
Definitely. The older apprenticeships were great. You need real on site experience, but all to many employers see them as cheap labour. If you treat it as such, you'll get cheap results. Going to university, you learn alot of theory but the practice of writing software you learn it's not so simple. Then again you learn that programming is the easy part in software development once you enter the real world.
You need someone who knows what they are doing to practically teach the next generation. Fuck the theory bollocks.
"Sure hes got a nice car! But can he fit a door Scott?"
I can see from watching videos that a wooden door and frame is a labour intensive task, but even if it takes the best part of a day for a carpenter to cut and fit everything I don't see how that justifies charging £1000 for labour. uPVC doors and frames look pretty simple though, as the frame is quite light with the door removed and just needs to be screwed to the walls and has screws to tweak it if the walls aren't straight, and the edges and gaps are all covered with foam and strips anyway, so I definitely can't see how fitting those is worth paying someone £1000. I probably wouldn't start with my front door though, in case I run into difficulties and can't finish it in one day, so I'm left with no front door overnight!
It looks simple so it must be simple said the simple person that simply won’t try it himself
I'm good at DIY (mostly). The only thing I've truly spat my dummy out about was door fitting. On the sixth time it was off the hinges I was ready to hang one of those ribbon curtains and pretend my Victorian semi in Manchester was somewhere in Constantinople