Is it possible to un-warp a door?

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Permalink Reply by A.R. Bowes on October 31, 2011 at 10:42am

Have you fixed your warped doors yet? If not, I have a few questions and comments.

How much are the doors warped (estimated by sighting along the edge)?

How old are the doors, how thick are they, and what kind of joinery do they have? If you don’t know, a picture of the edge of the door (the edge of a stile) and a picture of the front of the door might help determine the age and joinery type. Some types of door construction are more prone to warping than others, and some types of joinery may respond better to straightening than others.

Interior doors, as already discussed, can often become warped by temperature or humidity differences between rooms, which is common for bathroom, basement, kitchen, mudroom, and attic doors.

How are the doors finished (paint, varnish, oiled, bare, etc.)? Are they finished on both sides, and if so, is is the same kind of finish on both sides? Doors can sometimes become warped if they are finished on one side only or if they have a different kind of finish on each side. This can cause uneven moisture absorption and drying characteristics.

Doors can also become warped due to wood-related problems at the time of construction, such as poor or inconsistent selection of grain pattern or grain orientation, or using wood components that were not adequately or consistently dried.

Other contributing factors to warping can include the effects of finishes, glues, dimensional changes in the door jambs, incorrect hinge mounting, bent hinges, etc.

Occasionally, when the source of warping is eliminated or mitigated, a warped door might eventually straighten out on its own (well, to varying degrees), but you can’t count on this, since there are often multiple factors involved.

I’ve straightened a number of doors over the years via a few different methods, with pretty good long-term success, but there have been a few stubborn doors that returned to a warped condition.

I’ve lived in and restored a number of old houses and have dealt with a lot of door issues. Currently, I live in a house that is over 200 years old which still has most of its original doors. With seasonal humidity changes, the moisture level in the wood will vary considerably, even in painted doors. I've observed that as long as the temperature and humidity levels are more or less equal on both sides of the doors, and if the doors are finished in the same way on both sides, they will expand and contract in size (sometimes quite a bit), but generally don’t warp to any significant degree, unless there are other factors involved.

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Permalink Reply by Martin on October 31, 2011 at 1:58pm

No, I haven't gotten around to fixing the doors yet. The doors aren't warped too bad. However, you need to pull on the knob so they latch.So basically the top or bottom of the doors are hitting the jamb before the door latch. I will have to measure the thickness of the doors again since I can't remember off hand. I believe they are put together much like a window, with the tendons. They are finished in their orig. shellac still on both sides. I think at one time people had window A/Cs in the various rooms which could have added to the problem. Even the front door is warped. It is pretty thick, but it has/had glass in it.

 

I hope to eventually repair the problem with the doors upstairs at least. I noticed that when cold weather approaches, some of the doors will shut normally downstairs. It is humid in Ohio so in the summer the house swells a bit then things return to normal again during the winter.

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Permalink Reply by Randall Marder on November 1, 2011 at 10:37am

You have excellent responses to your problem.  I must agree adjust the depth of the hinges, deep penetrating oil the door, all sides (bottom, top, sides, front and back).  That will stabilize the door.

40 years experience in the field of historical preservation/restoration

Yours

Randall Marder

www.rmdesignconst.com

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Permalink Reply by Martin on November 1, 2011 at 2:21pm

Thanks for the information. I will have to take some pictures of the doors. I am sure that they started to warp a long time ago. There were a few leaks in the house due to leaky built in gutters so that could have added to the moisture problem. I haven't done too much work to the house lately since I have been working on my old car more before winter hits :)

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Permalink Reply by A.R. Bowes on November 1, 2011 at 4:41pm

I was glancing at your photos. It’s a great looking house, and it looks like you’re really diving into the restoration process! I wish you all the best with your project.

Here are a few more comments that might give you some food for thought.

The outside dimensions of a panel door in good condition will change with the seasons as the components expand and contract, but this change is limited by the fact that the panels are allowed to float instead of contributing to the overall dimensional change. If the panels were locked solidly in place, they could crack or they could push joints apart (and possibly warp something) as they contract and expand. Some of the wider panels in my 200-year-old cabinet doors actually change about a quarter of an inch from winter to summer, but the floating design keeps them from pushing the doors out of shape or damaging the joints.

Your particular five-panel doors have two vertical panels with a vertical grain orientation and three horizontal panels, which probably have a horizontal grain orientation. The upper panels would expand and contract primarily in a horizontal direction, while the three lower panels would expand and contract primarily in a vertical direction. If these panels happened to be locked in place by paint, varnish, or glue, they could be a contributing factor in warping.

One note regarding air conditioners. A compressor-type window (or whole-house) air conditioner will generally lower the relative humidity in a room or house. You’ll often see water dripping from the outdoor part of a window air conditioner. This water is actually coming from the cold coil inside the house that cools the air that blows through it. Moisture in the home’s interior air condenses on the cold coil, runs back along the bottom of the unit, and exits through a drip hole outside the house. The water does not come from the ‘hot’ coil on the outside, whose purpose is to cool down the refrigerant.

The opposite is true of an evaporative or ‘swamp’ cooler that is often used in very dry climates. Swamp coolers add moisture to the air blowing into a home because they rely on the evaporation of water flowing over evaporation pads to cool the air blowing through the pads and into the house.

Given the humidity levels in your area, I imagine that the air conditioners were the compressor type.

Anyway, keep up the good work.

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Permalink Reply by Martin on November 1, 2011 at 9:32pm

Thanks!! I will have to check to see if the panels are floating still. I noticed that one door that had the worst warping split one of the vertical panels. I will have to take some pictures of the problems.

 

From what I can tell, a lot of the air conditioners were not pitched outward correctly, so a lot of the dripping water ended up on the inside of the house. After pulling up the carpet, I could see where water had set for a long time due to the A/Cs. I am glad there wasn't more damage to the floors since I will be redoing them eventually. I put in a heat pump so my house heats and cools through the orig ductwork. Seems to work ok. It would be a lot better if I had all the windows reglazed,operating right, etc lol. Seems that there is always something to do :) I still need to get doors made for the downstairs since a set of pocket doors and 3 other doors were missing when I got the house. I have looked EVERYWHERE and can not find a door that has the same pattern.

 

Hopefully I will start to post more on this site. I have been doing a lot of uninteresting stuff to the place that isn't really "picture worthy".

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