Big gap under internal doors

[Doug71]

A few months ago I hung some internal doors for a local builder in a new build, they were pre finished Oak doors, the builder had fitted the casings.

I got a call last week to go and take a look at the doors as the people who bought the house and are now living there don't like the big gap underneath the doors.

What's happened is the builder allowed for the wood flooring and underlay he usually uses thinking he would be putting that in but the people who bought the house changed some of the specs and had Karndean type flooring fitted throughout downstairs which is only about 3mm thick meaning a 20mm+ gap under all the doors downstairs (I think 10 doors). Luckily upstairs is carpet and all fine.

They don't want a strip of Oak putting under the doors as it will always look like a strip of Oak was put under the doors.

I suggested to the builder dropping all the casings down 20mm but he wasn't keen on this.

Current thinking is putting a couple of strips of 18mm MDF under the casing top and dropping the doors 18mm, obviously this means dropping all the hinges, keep and architrave top down 18mm

Nobody is blaming anyone, the customer realises they changed the spec and are happy paying for the work I do to sort it out so no issues there.

Just wondered if anyone has done similar before or has any ideas I haven't thought of as it's a job I'm not really looking forward to doing?

Thanks, Doug

 

[AJB Temple]

The options seem to be, if they won't have a strip, fit faux weather strip mouldings (shallow) both sides; and/or fit a draught excluder brush to the bottom of the door and make that a feature. That is a horrendous job otherwise, especially making god around all the repositioned hinges.

 

[baldkev]

To me, it sounds like unfixing the linings and dropping them down will ultimately be the same work time wise as building the heads down and resetting the architrave etc, then redec. I'd drop the linings. 2" architrave will still cover the 20mm gap created by dropping the lining.

Is there an acceptable way to add a strip to the bottom of the doors? I.e, having a groove between the strip and door to give a 'shadow gap' or have the strips at 24mm thick, thereby recessing them 5mm from the door faces? This is undoubtedly less work and means that in the future if they go for carpet, they can just remove the strips instead of cutting doors down..... youd have ti do a coupke of test strips to see how it looks. You'd only need 2m of solid 20mm oak flooring to do 10 strips

 

[niall Y]

Nice one . The options are - 1 New doors. 2 Drop the casings,3 Stick a bit on the bottom of the door, 4 Place a threshold beneath each door.
Packing out underneath the casing top, across its whole width, and hiding this by moving the architrave down might be an option as long as the architrave is wide enough to disguise the plaster join. All less than ideal,
I suppose the bottom line is who is going to pay - and what price each option will cost.

Best of luck

 

[baldkev]

Nice one . The options are - 1 New doors. 2 Drop the casings,3 Stick a bit on the bottom of the door, 4 Place a threshold beneath each door.
Packing out underneath the casing top, across its whole width, and hiding this by moving the architrave down might be an option as long as the architrave is wide enough to disguise the plaster join. All less than ideal,
I suppose the bottom line is who is going to pay - and what price each option will cost.

Best of luck

Hi niall,
The doors will be standard height and uncut, so it'd be custom sized doors if they were to be made taller.
Unfortunately a 20mm threshold is a trip hazard, so that one's out too

Luckily, doug said the customer is paying, so i guess it's a balance between the ease of work and cost.
Building the head down is easiest, but I'd hope by locating and undoing the lining fixings, knife down the architrave to wall joint, remove top architrave and he's in with a chance of levering the whole thing down once the lining and architraves havd been trimmed 20mm. This of course depends how the builder fitted hhe linings. I always wedge and foam all mine, so they'd need to be freed from the foam, in which case i guess building the head down is best.

 

[Jacob]

Hi niall,
The doors will be standard height and uncut, so it'd be custom sized doors if they were to be made taller.
Unfortunately a 20mm threshold is a trip hazard, so that one's out too

Luckily, doug said the customer is paying, so i guess it's a balance between the ease of work and cost.
Building the head down is easiest, but I'd hope by locating and undoing the lining fixings, knife down the architrave to wall joint, remove top architrave and he's in with a chance of levering the whole thing down once the lining and architraves havd been trimmed 20mm. This of course depends how the builder fitted hhe linings. I always wedge and foam all mine, so they'd need to be freed from the foam, in which case i guess building the head down is best.

I'd offer them you favourite solution and if they don't like it don't do the job. Re positioning the linings sound like a potential fiasco. Oak strips added on is the only sensible way and the cheapest.

 

[baldkev]

I'd offer them you favourite solution and if they don't like it don't do the job. Re positioning the linings sound like a potential fiasco. Oak strips added on is the only sensible way and the cheapest.

Or quietly install carpet and see if they notice

 

[Inspector]

Maybe easiest and perhaps cheapest is to have new doors made with casings but not mortised for the hinges. Fit the new doors and the builder keeps the short doors to fit with the new casings on the next house they make. Trying to redo the existing casings will result in repairs to the wall, trim and the paint touchups won't look as good.

Builder should have seen this possibility coming and put plywood underlay of some kind down before the thinner flooring.

Pete

 

[HOJ]

Just a thought , are the hinges 3", would it help if you changed them to 4" may cut some slack on dropping the door without patching all the hinges recesses, then rework architraves with a packer in the head.

 

[johnnyb]

I always book and charge for a visit back to tiddle and the adjust to the flooring as its not decided till its down. flooring guys will take most doors off anyway.

don't know the Best solution other than restart with new linings keep the doors. shouldn't be to onerous.

 

[BucksDad]

Remind the owners it’s their home, they’ve just spent hundreds of thousands on it and the cost of 10 new doors is minuscule .. anything else is a hassle

 

[johnnyb]

I think forget about how the decorating is touched in etc. maybe new arcs around. then get a dec in to do his magic. last custom white oak internal I did was nearly £600 fitted. new linings/casings shouldn't cost to much. I wouldn't want strips put on tbh.

 

[johnnyb]

I did one job where a joiner( builder really) read 30 inch doors on the plans and left the gaps 30. obviously with frames they ended up in between sizes. the frames were all fitted. I had to pack out the sides to fit 27 doors.

 

[Woody Alan]

I had to do this job for a friend for different reasons. The head of the door lining was to low with concrete lintel over. He didn't want that much work to knock out so we cut the bottom of the door of and re-established integrity (because into chipboard core) with an oak strip glued on the bottom and it really isn't that obvious and looked ok when the doors were osmo'd after. In your case the best "looking" solution is to drop the head with a dummy head, refit architrave make good hinge positions and keep on lining and start again. If they are prepared to pay and you prepared to do then that's the answer.
I hink you were already there but just don't want to do it and looking for a magic answer

 

[Doug71]

The first thing the owners said is they don't mind buying and paying me to fit all new doors but as Kev said new doors would be the same size.

I will speak to the builder again and ask how the casings are fixed. Probably slightly optimistic but I'm thinking if they are just screwed in I can cut 20 mm off the bottom of the casing and arcs, take the screws out of casing and everything will drop straight down. job done

I would rather not be taking the doors off and re hanging although they should just drop straight down and I would only have to fill about 20mm above the hinges and latch in the casings.

The doors are the style below and I did wonder about buying one and cutting 20mm strips off it to stick on the bottom of the doors but with them being veneered and prefinished there is no margin for error.

https://www.howdens.com/joinery/doors/howdens-linear-oak-pre-finished-door-obj-sku-family-die7160
I am wondering about Kevs suggestion of an Oak lath underneath set in a bit from each face as one of their issues was the light coming under the doors.

My main issues are I've already done the job once and hate doing things twice, plus doing things like this in a brand new house someone is living in takes 5 times longer than doing them in an unfinished house which is just a building site!

 

[HOJ]

I second @baldkev,

add a strip to the bottom of the doors

 

[baldkev]

The first thing the owners said is they don't mind buying and paying me to fit all new doors but as Kev said new doors would be the same size.

I will speak to the builder again and ask how the casings are fixed. Probably slightly optimistic but I'm thinking if they are just screwed in I can cut 20 mm off the bottom of the casing and arcs, take the screws out of casing and everything will drop straight down. job done

I would rather not be taking the doors off and re hanging although they should just drop straight down and I would only have to fill about 20mm above the hinges and latch in the casings.

The doors are the style below and I did wonder about buying one and cutting 20mm strips off it to stick on the bottom of the doors but with them being veneered and prefinished there is no margin for error.

https://www.howdens.com/joinery/doors/howdens-linear-oak-pre-finished-door-obj-sku-family-die7160
I am wondering about Kevs suggestion of an Oak lath underneath set in a bit from each face as one of their issues was the light coming under the doors.

My main issues are I've already done the job once and hate doing things twice, plus doing things like this in a brand new house someone is living in takes 5 times longer than doing them in an unfinished house which is just a building site!

Yep, as i read your post i felt your pain. The potential dust and covering everything nearby etc is a headache, plus the customers actually being around watching adds to the hassle factor. I too hate revisiting compketed work. My worst was a coadding job.

The customer and i set up some test pieces of rain screen cladding with gaps. He concluded after a few days, he wanted 3mm gaps.... so we did the front and two sides of the house ( luckily didnt start the rear elevation )

On the monday when i went back, he said he'd rethought the gap situation and decided 5mm was safer because at 3mm, you could sometimes get water beads hanging in the gap, whereas our test puece showed it didnt happen at 5mm...... AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

We took it off one face at a time, respaced the boards and refixed, trimming the angles and top sections as we went. Soul destroying, plus anyone passing by would assume I'd cocked up

 

[Lard]

Here's a thought. Your original comment appears to suggest that he has more than one development. Could he not replace the doors and keep the 'smaller' ones for the next house that has the 'usual' flooring?

 

[Doug71]

Here's a thought. Your original comment appears to suggest that he has more than one development. Could he not replace the doors and keep the 'smaller' ones for the next house that has the 'usual' flooring?

Yes he is building another house right next door and yes he could use the doors in there but unfortunately it's not the doors that are short it's the openings that are long. Doors only come in standard sizes which is mainly 6'6" long. There are some longer ones available (too long really) but of course they don't come in the correct width

 

[Jackie H]

If the builder was the principle contractor and he was asked to do the spec change then really he should be the one sorting out the problem. Even though the Customer changed the spec he should have picked up on this and had the flooring contractors fit a 20 mm sub floor (as Pete said). Of course a different matter if the Customer did this off their own bat. Sounds like this sits with the Builder to sort out or the Customer.
You could present all the options and costs etc to both the Builder and Customer and let the Customer choose, they are paying after all. If you would rather not do the work then nothing lost on you if you suggest they find an alternate contractor.