Keep your doors in perfect working order
Staying on top of your basic door maintenance can mean less or smaller repair and replacement bills when things really start to deteriorate. A lot of your basic door maintenance can be done yourself without the need for us to send someone out to assist you. Other things might need external help. Here, we’ll list a range of door maintenance tasks that can be done to help keep your doors working in top condition.
Lubricate your door hinges
Lubricating your door hinges is a good way to keep your doors swinging smoothly, squeak-free. Doing this as part of your own maintenance routine also helps to maintain the hinge pin so that rust, dirt and grime do not build up over time.
To do this, you need to remove the hinge pin.These are usually quite tight and may need a bit of force to remove. If you’re struggling to remove yours without causing further damage to your door or door hardware, soak it in WD40 for a few hours then try removing it.
Once the pin is out, clean it to remove any build up of rust or grime. Lubricate both the pin and the hinge itself, then refit the pin to the hinge. Clean up any excess lubricant on the hinge or that may have got on to the door, then repeat the process for each hinge!
Lubricate your door lock
Keeping your lock and key mechanism properly lubricated can save you from the daily headache of having to fuss around with your key every time you try to lock up or unlock your door. Spray lubricants with precision nozzles and powdered graphite for the key can be easily purchased from home improvement/ hardware stores and the process only takes a couple of minutes to complete.
Stay on top of marks and scuffs
Repainting a door is a great way to make it look brand new again, but sometimes you might just need to stay on top of your marks and scuffs more regularly. A magic eraser will remove most marks and scuffs (even the most stubborn ones) and this can really be part of your normal cleaning routine. Of course, once we start talking about sizable dents or scratches, you’ll need to look at patching and painting instead.
Assess the ventilation of your bathroom
If your bathroom door has already been affected by moisture and swelling, it already may be too late for normal maintenance and you’ll need to look in to repairing the door. However, if you’re finding that your bathroom door is still in good condition but seems to be forever covered in water droplets and moisture, you may need to look at the condition of your actual bathroom. If the room is not properly ventilated and moisture is allowed to build up, it will form the perfect breeding ground for mould to build up in. It will also eventually penetrate the paintwork of your doors and cause the doors to swell over time. This could be a case of the fan having too much dust and grime built up in it, or you might just need to improve the airflow.
Of course, if you have any concerns over any of the above maintenance or you can’t do it yourself, we’d be more than happy to take care of it all for you. Just contact us with a list of the things you would like us to look at, with photos of each scenario, and we’ll arrange a quote!
There's plenty of videos online that show you how to do these things, especially on YouTube. Some maintenance however can be quite difficult, especially if you've got old doors that have rusted components that will need a lot of force to remove in order to clean. If you're not completely confident in your ability to do something yourself, don't do it! You may cause more damage than you fix, and it might end up costing you more to get repaired.
Well, this all comes down to your level of skill and your confidence in your ability to do it. You can actually find some great videos online that show you how to do it yourself. Of course, we’d love to do it for you if you’re unable to do it yourself.
This is one of the easier door maintenance tasks you can do yourself. On most handles you’ll just need to tighten up a couple of small screws. Some of them are hidden under a cover plate, but they usually have a small notch allowing you to wedge a flathead screwdriver under to flick the cover off. If your handle hasn’t got screws that you can find, give us a call and we’ll help you tighten your handles.
