Door repair is one of the most common calls we get, and there is a reason it clusters seasonally here. As the ground under a North Texas slab dries out through the summer, the house racks slightly out of square. Interior doors start dragging on the jamb, exterior doors stop meeting their strike plate, and the deadbolt that turned easily in March needs a shoulder in August.
The wrong fix is to plane the door until it clears. That works until the ground rehydrates in the winter and the door swings loose in an oversized opening. The right fix depends on what is actually moving: shimming and resetting hinges, relocating a strike plate, adjusting the jamb, or in genuinely bad cases rehanging the slab in a corrected frame.
We also handle the parts of a door most people ignore until they cost money — weather stripping that has gone hard and is bleeding conditioned air, thresholds that no longer seal, sliding patio doors running on flattened rollers, and screen doors and window screens that have been on the to-do list for two summers.
Questions
Common questions
Why does my door stick in the summer and not the winter?
Seasonal soil movement. Clay soil under the slab loses moisture in a North Texas summer and the house settles unevenly, which racks door openings out of square. It usually reverses in winter. That is why planing a door down in August is the wrong move — come February you have a door with a gap. The durable fix adjusts the hinges, jamb or strike plate so the door works across the whole range of movement.
Can you fix a sliding patio door that is hard to open?
Usually yes, and it is usually the rollers rather than the door. Rollers flatten out over years of use and the track fills with grit. Replacing the rollers, cleaning and where necessary capping the track, and re-adjusting the height typically brings a door back to a one-finger slide. If the frame itself has dropped, we will tell you before starting.
Do you install exterior doors, or only repair them?
Both. Exterior door installation includes squaring and shimming the frame, proper flashing and sealing so water does not get behind the trim, hardware and deadbolt fitting, and weather stripping and threshold adjustment so the door actually seals when it closes.
My deadbolt does not line up any more. Is that serious?
On its own, usually not — it is the same seasonal movement that makes doors stick, and moving the strike plate solves it. It is worth a closer look if it appears alongside new cracks above the door, gaps opening at the trim, or windows that have become hard to operate at the same time. That combination is worth having looked at properly.
Where we work
This service, by city
Based in Carrollton, working across North Dallas.
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