Why doors misbehave (and why it's rarely the door)
A door is a heavy panel hanging on two small metal pivots. Every swing loads the top hinge with most of the weight — thousands of cycles later, its screws creep loose, the latch corner drops, and the door starts to rub and miss the strike plate.
The noise is separate: hinge pins spin in metal knuckles thousands of times, the film of grease dries out, and metal rides on metal. Squeak is lubrication, never alignment.
The three everyday faults
- Sagging. The door drops on the latch side — it scrapes the frame or floor and the latch sits below the strike hole. The fix is mechanical: tighten the top hinge screws (and if a screw just spins, the hole is stripped — toothpicks and wood glue rebuild it).
- Dry hinges. The classic squeak. A dab of long-lasting lubricant on the pin, work it in, wipe the excess. Done in five minutes.
- Strike plate misaligned. The door closes but the latch misses the hole. The plate shows shiny scrape marks where the latch has been hitting — move the plate a millimetre or two toward the marks.
One honest limit: a door that sticks mid-height and worsens in humid weather is swollen wood, not hardware. It shrinks back in the dry season; heavy sanding is a job with real consequences — you can't add wood back.
Before you start. This is a simulated door, not yours. Tighten screws gently — half a turn at a time; over-torquing strips soft pine frames. We don't cover removing the door, planing it, or adjusting exterior security hardware — those are jobs where a wrong move costs more than a handyman.