I tracked 100 door leveling jobs and the numbers surprised me

Over the past year I kept a record of every door leveling adjustment I made in the field. I do a lot of work in older buildings downtown, and I figured most of my callbacks would be from settling or worn guides. Turns out out of those 100 jobs, 87 of them had the original door frame out of square by at least 3/16 of an inch. That number shocked me because I always blamed the elevator parts first. Now I check the frame before I even touch anything else, and my callback rate dropped by half. Has anyone else kept track of something similar on their jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

victor_adams951mo ago

Wait didn't I read something from a building science guy online who said that up to 80% of door issues in old buildings actually come from the frame settling over time? He did a small study on like 50 doors and found the same thing you did, where the frame was out way more than anyone expected. I think he tracked it by measuring from the header down to the threshold on each side and found some were off by almost half an inch. It makes sense though because those old downtown buildings shift so much with the seasons and all that water damage they get.

jake_hall881mo ago

Wait, wasn't that the same study where they also found the threshold itself was usually the first thing to go, not just the frame? That half inch gap sounds about right for what I've seen in old brick buildings around here.

margaret_singh114d ago

That's exactly what I've noticed too, @jake_hall88. That half inch gap you mentioned isn't surprising at all once you start paying attention to the frames. I've had a few doors where the frame was so far out of square I thought the building was going to fall down around me. It is a real eye opener when you realize how much the old brickwork settles over the decades. The numbers in that building science study match up with what I've seen out in the field for sure.