I don’t hang on any home improvement sites, so I’m slapping this here. We seem to have alot of handy types (which as will become readily apparent, I ain’t) so here goes:
Situation: The door from master bath to bedroom doesn’t fit the doorway. So the wife, who gets up before me, can’t get it closed when she heads in to do all the things that she spends an hour doing every morning. Because those things take me about 20 minutes, I enjoy the extra shuteye. Except this time of the year it’s dark out when she starts, so the BRIGHT light from the bathroom streams in and disturbs my blessed and innocent slumber.
As would be expected , the doorway isn’t perfectly plumb, but I don’t think it’s enough to be fatal here. It appears to me, upon bleary eyed and aggravated inspection this am, that the door is hung too high, so that it’s hitting the doorframe on the top. I think there’s enough room to drop it down so that it would clear the top of the doorframe, but not end up with the same problem on the floor.
Seems to me that my options are:
Take the door off and try to shave off the top enough that it will clear. There’s not enough room on the bottom to let too much light in down there. Problem, it’s not a solid door, so there may not be enough room up there to plane down.
Just rehang the door a bit lower. Problem, I don’t think I can bring it down enough to get entirely clear of the existing holes in the door where the hinges are screwed into the door. Maybe I can buy some “hole filler” fill in the existing holes and then pursue this option?
Get an entirely new door and just hang it (and hope that I’m correct that the misalignment of the doorway is not the real problem). Problems, more expensive, I’ll have to paint it, if I don’t find a door that PRECISELY matches every other interior door in the house the mildly obsessive compulsive spouse will not TOLERATE…
Something else you smart guys and gals will think of…
Use a circular saw and trim off the minimum you need from the top to get it to shut. Even a hollow door has at least an inch of solid wood on the edge.
This will be a quick, easy and effective solution.
AFAIK, you can shave a hollow door. In my experience, I have noticed most hollow interior doors have a solid wood frame around them that is at least an inch thick. You don’t need to take the door off to shave it, just get a ladder.
Look closely, the door probably fits better on one side than the other, you don’t want to just lower the whole thing by 1/4" or cut off 1/4".
Easiest, plane it with a hand plane. This will work no matter what type of wood door and no matter how much solid wood (if any is there)
Also very easy, use a power belt sander to grind off some at the top.
Best, but not always practical, take the door off. Take apart the door frame. Put the door frame back, but take out the shims the original builder put in to make it square and put the shims back in where they make the whole thing square again. If you have never done this, expect to need to putty around the door frame and do touch up painting.
I would check it out good before you cut anything. If the door is sagging and hitting at the top on the side (vertical plane). I would take out a screw from the top hinge furthest from the sheetrock and put in a longer screws. Like 2 to 3 inch long screws.I like to drill a hole through the door jam so the screw can pull up the door. They will hit the jack stud and pull the door up so to have more room at the top side. If the screws don’t move the door plane the side to fit. If the door does hit at the top horzontal plane I would use a block , jack, or electric plane to shave off the wood. You can use a set of dividers (a compass) to mark the top or side for the cut. It all depends on how much you have to cut what tool you need to use.If you start with 10 fingers try to finish with the same. You will look better with 10 good rather then say 9 or less. I hope you get that last 15 min of sleep.
As a former custom carpenter I think I can help you.
All hollow doors do oindeed have a wood frame they are built around, usually 1 1/2 inches in depth, so a small material removal from the top of the door works well in your situation.
Whatever you do don’t use a skill saw. You will get hung up on the blade guard and the saw will kick back on you as a result, not something I would suggest to the average do-it-yourselfer. You will just shred the door sheathing and ruin the door unless you have a very high tooth count blade and the tools to properly jig the cut so you can run the saw evenly along a straight line. This would also mandate door removal if you even want to try it.
My advice: Rent or borrow a planer from someone and set the blade just barely out from the housing, taking very little off at a time until the door fits, then take a bit more to allow for future settling of the frame. Always plane from the OUTSIDE edge of the door. If you plane from the center to the edge you will rip a chunk off the corner of the door when you get to it and will be pissed at yourself.
wait don’t do anything yet. Sounds like there may be multiple problems.
Is the door hitting the top on the side near the hinge or the other side?
Are the hinges loose?
Don’t use a power tool on a ladder. If you had the experience to use one that way you would not need to post asking for help. Not dissing, just been there done that and I work on doors all the time. If you need to use a power tool just take the door off and put it on saw horses. Besides the power tool will make fine dust all over and I’ll bet your spouse won’t like that. If you really need to shave the door use a low angle block plane. That can be done from a ladder or stool.
But back to the problem. If the house has sagged then truly the best and correct fix will be to rehang the door. Not that hard… unless there is something else abt the door you have not told us.