Hanging Doors

wink

good morning everyone, looking for a little faster way to hang interior doors. the way i do it now is: remove door from jamb, cut jambs when needed, place jamb in opening and plumb hinge side of jamb with 6 foot level, making sure jamb remains straight with level, then putting door back on hinges and shiming around door to get my gap even all the way around, it has been taking me almost an hour on some doors. there must be a faster way, any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance wink

Tom R

http://www.contractortalk.com/showth...=hanging+doors

tcleve4911

A recent post had a great tip that I now use.
Make a shim assortment out of scraps of 1/4", 3/8" & 1/2" plywood. These are cut @ 4-1/4" x 4-1/4". Find an appropriate container to keep them separated & organized in. Not a sheetrock bucket. The square plastic bins that screws come in are perfect.
Make reference marks on your 6' level where the hinges will be. Now shim the areas where the hinges will be. Screw them tight into the framing. (tacking with a finish nail gun can leave gaps that will change as you screw your jamb through the shims and into your framing)
Check your floor level and cut the jambs accordingly.
Remove (1) 3/4" screw from each jamb hinge and have a 2-1/2" Brass colored or nickel colored screw ready for installation.
Set the jamb into the opening and screw the jamb to the shimmed frame. Rehang your door & shim your reveals even.
Lesson - Maybe it does take an hour to hang one door. But with thinking ahead & good methods, you should be able to hang 8 doors in less than a day!!

__________________
Back in Maine
Dubbin' Around
Doin' good stuff ......

thom

Wink, why remove the door from the jamb? I put the jamb in the opening, snug it to the hinge side, put the level on and move the top or bottom of the hinge side as needed. This is done with the door in the jamb and the door closed. When the hinge side is plumb (put level against the hinges pushing toward the jamb/adjacent wall) nail it with your finish nailer. Proceed to nail the remaining two sides by balancing the reveal. Shim the door as needed from the other side prior to installing the casing on the other side.

It takes 10-15 minutes or so per door after they are spread. The hinged doors go faster than that, the slow doors are the bi-folds and bi-pass doors.

The slowest is the 1-3/4" solid core weatherstripped door between the house and the garage. This one I do differently. The casing is not yet on the jamb. On the hinge side I nail or screw 2 @ 1X2's across the opening. Push the door snug against the 1X2's Plumb the hinge side, shimming at each hinge. Screw the hinge side with two screws, through the jamb. Go around and check the top reveal (from the hinge side) If the hinge side needs lifting, do it now, if not, shim the remainder of the jamb then go back and screw the jamb. Remove the 1X2's trim the shims and case.

Generally, working alone, I will do all the doors in a house, 18 interiors in the last one which is average for what I do, including spreading the doors, in about 4 hours.

wink

thanks everyone, the shims cut ahead of time are a great idea, plumbing the hing side first will help save some time, and the idea of leveling a line acrossed at eye level and not shiming up a level on the floor is great. all though i don't quite understand how you are nailing the jam if the door is closed. unless you have casing on the jam first and you are nailing the casing. i might not have understood that post i will look at it again. i don't think i'll ever hit 10 or 15 minutes a door, but after all the bills are paid if i still have a little left in my hand, it's a good day.

thom

The casing is installed on one side (the hinge side) prior to installation. The door is initially installed by nailing the casing through the sheetrock to the stud.

tcleve4911

Do you put screws through the hinges into the jambs?

__________________
Back in Maine
Dubbin' Around
Doin' good stuff ......

Mrmac204

wow, fast! wish that I could employ some of these methods. where I am currently working, they have a very specific way of installing a door.

strike a line across the opening, from one wall to another. find the 1/2 way point, put your square on this and draw a line thru the opening (right angles) measure over from this 1/2 the width of the Jamb. using our square again draw another line at right angles also through the opening.
Now get both of your plumb bobs, hang them from the 2x4, and see how close they are to the line. shim underneath the plumb bob, so that it points directly onto the line, and then do the same for the other plumb bob right next to the first one- this also reveals any twist in the 2x4. so now we have both plumb bobs pointing exactly at the line where the outside of the jamb will be.
so now shim install shims, measuring from the plumb line to the shim, so that it is exact all the way down. Next do the same for the other side. then put the Jam in san's door- now put the plumb bob over top the header into the gyproc - so now measure from the plumb bob to the bottom of the jam, then 1/2 way up, then all the way up etc. screw that sucker off! BTW before we started, we used a builders instrument to find the exact elevation, and mark that on the wall so that we can measure from that to the top of the jamb, so we know that the jamb is perfectly level.

takes about 6 hours. drives me nuts, but hey- the boss says do it this way, so that's what I do

Mac.

Tom R

Nothing personal, of course, - - I know it's not 'your' method, - - but that's about the craziest thing I've ever heard.

In fact, - - I feel much 'older' (like I just aged from the severe loss of time involved) having even read it . . .

wink

yea, never mind i don't think it's taking me that long after all, oh i feel dizzy

troubleseeker

Leave the door in the frame. I shim the hinge side level, then slip the unit in and check for reveals. If the floor is out of level, I slip a small wedge under the short jamb to maintain the head reveal, then use a couple of assorted thickness shims to establish the distance off the floor, then use this stack to scribe the long jamb. It is no problem to handle the typical hollow interior door unit, so just lay it on a previously located set of sawhorses amd make the cut. Honestly, I normally do not send longer screws through the hinges of hollow interior units unless I need them for cheating a reveal. I use 15 ga nails and after nailing off the trim on both sides, I send two nails through the jamb at each shim stack location. It is much easier to leave the door in and use it to gauge your reveals than any other way. If I am hanging in a hallway where the centering is crucial, and clearance for the trim is tight, I will remove the shop applied trim from the unit to make it easier for me to center the unit in the hall. I also shim closely above and below the strike location on the knob side, not only to hold the clearance for the latch, but to make the jamb solid here, for the inevitable chiseling that will need to be done when the latches are installed to make the usually poorly routed mill shop strike recess fit.Once you establish a method, you will be able to easily do typical door in 20 min or so.

troubleseeker

As they say...."Surely you jest?" Six hours to hang a typical interior door?

beerisgoodfood

I dont trust crap factory reveals.

Zip out the 9 screws (30 seconds?)

2' level the floor (3 seconds)

Center the jamb and plumb and level the header ( 2 minutes)

Hang door and adjust reveals. (five minutes)

I do appreciate all the bad doors that have been hung by these speed demons but i really dont see a slowdown in hanging the frame first.

Disclaimer... Im white and i dont work on apartments etc.

Feel free to hate .

Mrmac204

ya its nuts- we also "shim" the wall before we put up crown and trim - we run a string line from corner to corner, then measure in from that at each stud- and then shim out as needed. can you say "cost plus?" but this contractor has a very good rep for doing outstanding work, and this is how it gets done. I really like the work! but wow, I cannot employ these methods when I do small jobs on the weekend.
what the heck, they are (mostly) good guys to work for so I just keep learnin
If I get the chance, I will try to get some pictures of a door being hung.

Mac!

thom

On a pre-hung, the only factory reveal there is is on the hinge side. The other reveals are set by the installer. These can be accurately eyeballed.

Plumb and nail the casing on the hinge side. Plumb it by putting your level on the hinges pushing the hinges toward the stud.

After installing the hinge side, nail the headder piece through the casing, adjust it by adjusting (by eye) a consistent reveal.

Nail the strike side of the door casing, again, eyeball the reveal.

It's quick, easy, accurate, unless you are unable to eyeball a 3/16ths reveal.

wink

i have to investigate these doors with the casing attached, that's not the way anyone orders them around here. do they come with biscuts in the miters, we always biscut our miters, i suppose we could put some casing together and let them dry and then attach them to the jamb, i think that would be to much time spent on a door though. the method of shiming the hinge side jack plumb before installing the jamb was quicker today than what i have been doing, thanks again everyone, i just don't think i'll be doing it with plumb bobs, wink

beerisgoodfood

Interior doors dont come precased so dont bother searching.


The guy must be talking about standard exterioir and garage doors with the brickmould pre attatched.

And i dont even trust factory hinge reveals let alone bottom threshold clearance from the box stores.

Its a big joke from the factory and its all on the installer to figure out why a new door could be so COMPLETELY ****ED UP out of the gate and make it work somehow.


Dont trust the door. Its that simple.

I dont like mexican stripped out non countersunk hinge screws and thats just the beginning.

You pay for cheap **** and you get cheap **** and that aint on the installer of low grade garbage bull**** disguised as a home depot "promo".

Its a joke.

Dont bitch at the Installer but bitch at the uninformed fags that peddle this garbage at the box stores.

end of rant.

Murphy

Six hours on an interior door.

Better rethink your career choice.

Mrmac204

well murph, there are several responses that I could give you in reply to your "comment." I'll take the high road..

re-read the original post- where it says that my boss tells us to do it this way.... its a no brainer really, he's the boss- so we do it his way. has nothing to do with re-thinking a career, it is doing what we are told to do. I happen to like it. you do not. your problem not mine.
and its a small thing- its a post on the internet. get over it dude.

knkco

hi there, I have been installing doors and trim for a while now. On interior doors the easiest way I have found is to center the door in the whole and drive shims in solid on the upper corners of both the hinge and bore side. This allows the door to stay in place while you adjust the rest of the door. From here I usually go the lower corner on the hinge side and pull parallels, in other words the door should be placed equal distance away from the closest wall on the top and bottom corners. After shimming the bottom corner on the hinge side, You can usually create a perfec reveal along he top of the door by shimming your upper and lower hinges. Remember that the upper hinge drives the door down and the lower hinge pushes the door up. Finish up by shimming the lower corner of the door on the bore side to match the reveal along on the upper corner of the bore side. Then shim behind the bore hole itself, and usually I place a shim in between the bor hole and the upper corner. It may sound like a lot of steps, but I have found that do not fight the door that much, and after time you should be able to hang a door this way is about 20 minutes