To fix doors that won’t stay open or open by themselves, follow these simple steps:
- Wiggle each hinge to check for any play. Loose hinges can cause the door to move on its own, so tighten the screws on each hinge to ensure they are snug against the door and frame.
- Adjust the door-leafs and/or door stops if the door no longer closes flat against the door stops.
- If the door is installed slightly out of plumb, there are two ways to fix it. First, remove one of the hinge pins, bend it slightly with a hammer, and tap it all the way back into the hinge. This will increase the friction in the hinge.
- Opening interior doors is recommended to balance air pressure inside your home. When doors inside are closed, pressure differentials are reduced.
- Leave every door wide open or slightly ajar to help spread colder air around your home.
- If cooking in the kitchen, keep the heat from your oven. Use two small eye-hooks or cup hooks to open the door fully against the wall. Screw one hook at the top of the door, handle-side, and the other at the hinge side.
- Place a piece of carpet underlay on the hinge side of the door between the door and frame where it gets pinched holding the door slightly open.
- Keep interior doors open while heating your home to prevent unnecessary problems with airflow and save you on utility bills. By following these simple steps, you can fix doors that won’t stay open or open by themselves, ensuring a comfortable and efficient home.
📹 How to FIX a Door That Swings Open or Close – EASY!
Doors swinging open or close are frustrating, so learn how to DIY door repair and do some home improvement without a …
📹 How to stop a door from swinging open
You can do this in under 1 minute. The fix should last for years. If the door starts swinging again, just bend the pins again.
Haha wow. For reals?? I had 3 doors in my house that were driving me nuts. Now I have 0 doors in my house driving me nuts. Thank you sooo much! Totally worked! Now the test to see if it holds up for longer than a month. My nephew does home repairs and has helped twice with the doors. Both times worked but not for longer than a month or so. So here’s hoping! 😃
Thank you so much for taking the time to create and post this. You are a lifesaver – No, I mean it, you literally saved the lives of anyone within reach of me the next time my pantry door crept open on me while searching in my fridge creating a very painful trap for my fingers when I went to shut fridge! Also a quick shout out to all my fellow viewers who also fell victim to any of the other how to articles that involved drills screws removals templates shims etc. only to find they either didn’t work at all or even worse teased you with a victory over that POS only to have it ripped away two days later when despite your efforts to ignore it…. The creep was back!
Thank you so much!! Ladies you can do this. Only had to work with one of the pins. I didn’t actually remove the pin. Grabbed my hammer and awl, tapped the pin from the bottom to push it up, took the claw part of the hammer to slightly bend the pin, then pound it back into place! Worked great. That door was driving me bananas. Score one for us ladies!
I am NOT a handyman in the slightest. I just bought a new home with builder a warranty. My office door which must stay open 24/7 slowly sways closed. I called my warranty guy and he said, “I’d wait until the end of your warranty for things like this so they can settle over time.” Well, thanks to this article I won’t be calling about this problem. I doubtfully took a leap of faith to try and find a article like this. Problem solved. I feel like a better handyman already!
25 years in maintenance and have never been asked to fix this problem. Had a client grease all the hinges in a new place for them. All the doors squeaked. I fixed the squeakers, but two of the doors started this issue. I figured the jamb was not square and was gunna put a piece cereal box behind the bottom hinge, or two pieces on the bottom and one in the middle. Figured that might fix it. Glad I googled. This is a lot better than boxboard. I don’t even know if it would have worked either.
Great article. Thank you for that. My powder room door always closes on me and won’t stay open. And my daughters room always swings open if not fully closed which was tripping me out because I just moved into the house. I need to try this fix tonight. A lot of little things I need to fix in my house. I have this feeling your website is going to be helpful in the upcoming months of repairs.
I checked the alignment of the door frames (as discussed in the article) for two doors that swing opposite ways by themselves and they are out of alignment in opposite as compared with a door that doesn’t show the problem and the axis is more true than the others, so it follows that the ghost swinging pattern is a frame alignment problem, too. Thanks for the education. The fix is lots cheaper!
What a trick of genius! This has settled a problem I had with a bedroom door that due to the settling of the house made the door practically slam open. My handyman friend replaced the door, which I wanted due to the change in doorknob, but still was a problem, although not slamming open. He did this fix and all is good! Thanks heaps!
I had high hopes that this would work, but even after trying it on all three hinges, the door still swings open. UPDATE: Frustrated, I bent the bottom two hinges more than “slightly” and it’s now pretty stable. Oddly, when I bent the top hinge, it got worse again, so I straightened it and it’s back to being stable.