Home Maintenance For Dummies, 2nd Edition
Page 30
3. Wait for the glue to dry completely.
4. Cut away the excess toothpicks and reinstall the old screw(s).
We’ve made this repair many times, and it works beautifully.
Replace the door on the track gently and carefully. Forcing the door into the track can bend either the door hardware or the track, which can make keeping the door on the track impossible.
Cutting to accommodate carpet
When new carpet is installed, some companies cut the door bottoms for you so that the door can open and close easily. (This also allows return air to flow back into your furnace or air-conditioning system. You’d be surprised by the amount of air that will travel through the small space between the bottom of the door and the carpet.) If your installers don’t cut the bottom of the door for you, you can do it yourself. Follow these easy steps:
1. With a pencil laid on its side on the carpet, mark a line along the entire length of the bottom of the door.
2. Remove the door by removing the hinge pins.
3. Place the door on a flat work surface or a couple of sawhorses.
4. Use a utility knife to make a cut along the pencil line; then place duct tape just above the cut/pencil line.
The slice made with the utility knife and the duct tape prevent damage to the door during the cutting process. Without these preventive measures, the cut line can easily chip and score.
5. Use a saw to cut off the bottom of the door.
Special tasks for different types of doors
Standard swinging doors (flush-mount doors) all end up needing the same types of repairs to resolve: sticking, swinging shut with no help, and not latching properly. After you’ve repaired one flush-mount door, you can repair them all. This isn’t so much the case with other types of doors that have different mounting devices and unusual hinges or tracks. In this section, we cover the most common problems with other types of doors.
Double-action swinging doors
Double-action swinging doors give their hinges a real test. After your kids go through them 29 million times, treating them as if they were a new Disneyland adventure, the mounting screws loosen, and the springs within the hinge weaken in spite of the fact that you may, from time to time, shoot them with a bit of silicone lubricant.
Many of these doors use double spring-action hinges that are self-closing and allow the doors to swing in both directions. Some have stops that allow the doors to remain open when they’re swung past 90 degrees. There are two main types of swinging door hinges: Some are mounted to a wood strip that you mount to the doorjamb. Others use a double-action pivot consisting of a heavy spring and a cam and are mounted either in the bottom of the door or in the floor.
Here’s what you can do for either type of hinge:
Hinges in a wood strip mounted to the doorjamb: To adjust the hinge so the doors meet flush when closed, use the spring steel adjustment rod provided with the hinge. If you’ve lost the adjustment rod, use the long end of a snug-fitting Allen wrench. Push or pull the adjustment rod to increase the spring tension. This allows you to remove the pin that holds the spring in place. Move the pin so that the spring is one hole tighter; then check the door alignment. You may have to make adjustments to the springs on both doors.
Because there is a lot of pull on the screws that hold these hinges in place, replace the screws with 11/2- or 2-inch-long screws that reach into the studs behind the doorjamb.
Hinges using a double-acting pivot mounted in the bottom of the door or in the floor: Dust and dirt are the biggest problems for these bottom-mounted spring devices. Keep them as clean as you possibly can by vacuuming frequently. If the spring is jammed, unscrew the cover plates from the hinge and vacuum. If you find any rust, scrape it off and vacuum again. Then spray the spring and the pivot with a silicone lubricant. Clean and install the cover plates.
Pocket doors
This style of door is appropriately called a pocket door because, when in the open position, the door neatly slides into a void space in the wall. A pocket door glides on rollers that hang from a track mounted on the frame above the door.
Old-fashioned pocket doors always seemed to fall off the track. That doesn’t happen with the newer doors. But you may need to adjust the height of the doors because of changes in the floor covering. The procedures for doing this vary depending on the manufacturer and model of the door, but here are general guidelines:
1. Remove one of the split headers that hide and trim the roller track.
Beneath the rollers, you find a hanger with an adjustment bolt and nut or screw.
2. Use a thin-end wrench or a screwdriver to turn the nut or screw to raise or lower the door.
To clean dust from the tracks, use a vacuum. Lubricate the rollers with spray silicone lubricant.
Silicone lubricant keeps the hardware locks functioning unless they become very dirty. In that case, remove the lock or lever and clean them in mineral spirits. Spray a coating of silicone on the interior parts; then reassemble.
Bypass and bifold doors
Bypass and bifold doors ride on tracks and often are derailed. To fix this common problem, do the following:
For bypass doors: Hold the door at about a 15-degree angle into the room and then engage the rollers into the track.
For bifold doors: Simply press downward on the roller at the top of the door and then align it with the track above. Once aligned, simply release the roller and watch it pop into the track.
Shower doors
When a snoopy guest uses your bathroom, the first thing he looks at is the shower door. Is it clean? Here’s how to clean a shower door and keep it that way:
Using lemon-oil polish and a scouring pad, scrub the glass panels with gusto. If the door has acrylic panels, go easy on the scrubbing or you may scratch the acrylic.
Scrub with sodium carbonate. You can find a pure form of sodium carbonate, called pH Increaser, at swimming pool retailers.
Use a sponge and dishwashing detergent to clean the shower door (and the rest of the shower stall) after every shower.
Place a couple of small suction cups that have small hooks on the inside of a shower door. Use the pair of hangers to suspend a vinegar-soaked rag on the inside of the shower door. Reposition the hangers and rag periodically to conquer small sections at a time. This may sound funny and look terrible, but it’s inside the shower, and your guests won’t see it unless they’re really snoopy. The vinegar will soften the mineral deposits. Really dirty shower doors may require some scrubbing with a nylon scouring pad.
If the doors get out of alignment, or the rollers come off the track, you can usually reset the doors by lifting them in the frame and resetting the rollers in the channel.
When the doors drag, or they don’t stay in the bottom channel, you need to adjust the rollers. Follow these steps:
1. Lift the outer door until the rollers clear the top track; then pull the bottom of the door out and away from the bottom channel and set it aside. Do the same with the inner door.
2. Clean debris from the bottom track and clean the door frames using our Easy All-Surface Mildew Remover (see Chapter 20).
3. Loosen the screws that hold the rollers to the door frame and adjust them to raise or lower the door as needed.
If the screws are rusted, replace them with zinc-coated or stainless-steel screws.
4. Spray a dry silicone lubricant lightly on the rollers to keep them operating smoothly.
Knobs, locks, and latches (oh my!)
How could anyone possibly write a biography about Martin without including Lewis? And what about Abbot and Costello? In the same vein, how could anyone expect us to write a chapter about doors without including door hardware? You know — knobs, locks, and latches.
Dirty knobs (not legal in every state)
Barring a damaged finish, just about the only problems you’ll have with doorknobs and sliding door latches are (1) screws that loosen and (2) collected dirt that jambs up the mechanism. In our
31-plus years as contractors, we haven’t ever seen a doorknob fail — at least not yet! We’ve found that cleaning and lubrication can solve most problems.
When a doorknob, key lock, or sliding-door latch begins to stick intermittently, or when it isn’t operating as smoothly as usual, it’s probably gunked up with dirt. When this happens, most of us have the tendency to use a lubricant to solve the problem. Don’t! Lubricant is used to reduce friction, not clean.
If you have a sticky doorknob, we suggest spraying cutting oil into the works. Cutting oil cleans and lubricates. Better yet, take a few moments to remove the hardware and dip it into a bath of cutting oil. Follow the bath with a spray of light machine oil — sewing machine oil is great — and reinstall the knob. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it’ll operate like it’s brand-new. This procedure has worked successfully for us on doorknobs and levers, deadbolts, throw bolts, and patio-door latches — just about any door hardware that we’ve ever had to maintain.
Someone told us your screws were loose
You reach for the doorknob, and as you grip it, you notice that it’s shifted from its original position. You can see where the trim ring and the paint don’t line up. You try wiggling the knob in hopes that it won’t move, thinking to yourself that if it doesn’t, further attention on your part won’t be required. Hey, sooner or later you’ll have to deal with it. The nice thing is that the maintenance is unbelievably easy.
To solve the problem, tighten the screws that hold the knob in place. Often their location is pretty obvious. Usually they can be found at the interior trim ring, although on some hardware the screws are hidden. To tighten the screws on these models, do the following:
1. Using the blade of a small screwdriver, depress the small push-button release found in the shaft of the knob to pull the knob away from the door.
The push button is usually located on the underside of the knob shaft.
2. Remove the knob and pop off the trim ring by applying pressure to a small spring lever located at the inside edge of the trim ring.
Alternatively, pry it off with a screwdriver. The screws — two of them — will be directly beneath the trim ring.
3. Tighten the screws snugly in place and replace the trim ring and the knob.
First time around, the process may confuse you slightly. After one time, you’ll wonder how anything so simple ever avoided your attention.
You can keep key locks lubricated with graphite powder, but it can be a bit messy, and there’s a chance that using too much could temporarily jamb the lock. However, there is an easy and inexpensive alternative: Rub a pencil onto your key. Then push the key into the lock. The lead, which is actually a graphite compound, will transfer to the lock and lubricate it. It really does a great job.
The strike plate
When is a plate big enough to hold a door closed, but not large enough to hold lunch? When it’s a strike plate — that’s when. If you just laughed, then you know that the strike plate is the small metal thing attached to the door frame that interlocks with the bolt on the doorknob when the door is closed. The strike plate is so named because it’s what the bolt “strikes” as the door is being closed.
The strike plate actually serves three purposes:
Its curved outer edge helps to gradually depress the bolt as the door closes.
It acts as a shield preventing wear and tear to the doorframe.
When interlocked with the bolt, it holds the door snugly to the frame. With some strike plates, this function is adjustable.
One of the major causes of door (and window) misalignment is house movement. Actually, if a house didn’t move, there would probably never be a need to realign its doors. However, until homes stop shifting, doors will have to be tweaked one way or another, and the process will often have to include adjusting the strike plate to realign it with the door bolt.
Closing the door just enough for the bolt to lay on the outside edge of the strike plate can give you a good idea of why the bolt isn’t interlocking with the strike plate. The bolt must rest centered between the top and bottom of the plate. If the bolt is lower than center, the plate must be lowered. If the bolt is higher than center, the plate should be raised.
Most often, the adjustment needed is extremely minor. Place a chisel into the hole in the strike plate. To lower the strike plate, hold the edge of the chisel against the bottom of the hole and tap downward on the chisel with a hammer. One light blow is all that it usually takes to move the strike plate enough to clear the bolt. Hold the chisel against the top of the opening and lightly tap upward with the hammer to move the plate up. Keep in mind that if the strike plate has to be moved more than 1/8 inch, the door may have to be adjusted instead. In some cases you may need to adjust both the door and strike plate.
Two screws hold a strike plate in place. Slam a door often enough and the screws will definitely come loose, resulting in a door that wobbles when closed. First, try tightening the screws. If they’re stripped, which is often the case, do this:
1. Remove the screws and the strike plate.
2. Dip two golf tees in glue.
3. Drive one golf tee into each of the holes.
4. When the glue has dried, cut off the excess golf tees with a utility knife.
5. Reinstall the strike plate.
No more wobble!
Loving your locks
In addition to making sure that your locks are securely fastened to the door, you also need to clean and lubricate locks to keep them in good working order.
To remove the lock so that you can clean it, first unscrew the screws holding the faceplate on the inside knob and remove the knobs. Then remove the screws in the latch plate and remove the latch bolt assembly. The latch is that part of the door hardware that fits into the strike plate on the door frame when the door is closed. Clean the latch bolt assembly with mineral spirits. Lubricate the assembly with silicone spray, and then reinstall the lockset.
Bolts that hang up on the latch plate may catch on paint. Remove the paint and lubricate the bolt.
Chapter 13
Cabinets and Countertops
In This Chapter
Adding life to the finish of your cabinets
Keeping cabinet parts on the move
Giving countertops the love they need
Kitchen and bathroom cabinets take a beating. Day in and day out, their doors and drawers are opened and closed many, many times, which gives hinges, door catches, and drawer guides a real test. Not to mention that little kids often use drawers as “steps,” and have been known to create a little cheap entertainment by swinging on cabinet doors. Wheee! That much use, and that kind of abuse, is tough on cabinets. Frequent cleaning to remove dirty, oily handprints and greasy buildup can go a long way toward keeping your cabinets looking great. However, eventually you need to kick it up a notch. Luckily, most of the time all you need to do is throw on some paint, revarnish, or just repair scratches and dings. And a quick drawer-glide repair, knob replacement, or hinge adjustment can make your cabinets look and feel like new (well, almost new).
Countertops are pretty tough. They can be made of plastic laminate (a thin layer of plastic glued onto a wood-composite base), solid surface (solid plastic or solid acrylic), ceramic tile, stone (such as marble or granite), or wood butcher block. Each surface requires different care; when they’re damaged, they need different cures for what ails them. In many instances, these cures also protect these surfaces and, therefore, extend their life span.
In this chapter, we look at both cabinets and countertops, even though they’re made of different kinds of materials and require different kinds of care and repair. Why discuss them together? Because you find them together in the home, and, to us, that’s a great reason to lump them into one chapter.
Keeping Cabinets Looking Great: Cleaning Know-How
Kitchen cabinets are magnets for grease, food bits, spills, and moisture. This slimy crud builds up, making them look dingy and dirty. As the paint or
varnish on the cabinet wears, the wood beneath can become stained or even damaged.