Doors, Locks & Carpentry in Morrisville, NC

The door people treat as ordinary

Morrisville has a high share of townhomes and attached properties, and nearly all of them have an attached garage with a door into the house.

That door gets treated as a normal interior door. It is not.

The opening between an attached garage and a dwelling is fitted with a specific assembly intended to resist the passage of fire and smoke for a period of time. That involves the door itself, the frame, and often the hardware — and the assembly is only as good as its weakest part.

Which has three consequences worth knowing.

It cannot be swapped for a door off a shelf

An ordinary hollow-core or panel door from a merchant is not the same product, whatever it looks like. Fitting one there removes the protection the assembly was providing.

There is good news attached to this: rated doors are available in far better finishes than the flat builder default, so wanting a nicer door is usually a question of choosing within the right category rather than giving up on the idea.

The self-closer is part of it, not an accessory

That door is meant to be closed. A door standing open provides no protection at all, and people leave doors open — arms full of shopping, taking the bins out, a dog going in and out.

Which is why there is a closer on it. And which is why, in a great many houses, the closer has been disconnected because it was annoying, or has lost its adjustment, or the door has dropped enough that it no longer latches when the closer pushes it.

Refitting or adjusting it is quick and inexpensive, and it is one of the more worthwhile things on any list we get in these houses.

Common fixes:

• Adjusting closing speed and latching speed so it shuts firmly without slamming
• Fixing the door position where it has dropped and no longer latches under closer pressure alone
• Adjusting the strike for the same reason
• Refitting a closer that somebody removed

Seals matter

Where there is weatherstripping or a seal round that frame, it is doing a job. Worn seals get replaced rather than left.

Attached homes and permission

The other Morrisville-specific consideration.

Interior doors inside your own unit are yours, and no permission is required.

The front door, anything opening onto a shared corridor or landing, and anything on the exterior may well be common property or governed by an approved specification. Colour, style and hardware can all be covered.

It is one email to the management company and it is far easier before the work than after.

Party walls. Where door work means opening a wall — moving a strike, dealing with a damaged jamb — it is worth knowing what is inside a shared wall before drilling, and some associations restrict work on them.

Noise. Cutting and chiselling carries through a party wall more than people expect. We keep the noisy work to sensible hours and tell you roughly when it will happen.

The ordinary door work

Seasonal binding. Doors swell in summer humidity and shrink in winter. A door that sticks in August and is fine by Christmas should not be planed — remove material now and you have a permanent gap in four months. The clearance gets recovered by fixing hinges and adjusting the strike.

Loose top hinges. The most common cause of a sticking door anywhere. The top hinge carries the weight, its screws lose grip in the jamb, the door tips and the top corner on the latch side binds. Longer screws that reach the framing behind the jamb lift the door back to square.

Hollow-core interior doors. Standard in these properties. They split at the hinge side where screws have pulled and fail at the lock block where a handle has been forced. Some is repairable and some is not — we will say which.

Deadbolt strikes. Builder installations commonly use short screws that stop in the jamb rather than reaching framing. Longer screws are a ten-minute change and the most useful security upgrade on the house.

Sliding and patio doors. Usually rollers and track debris rather than anything structural.

Turnover work

Morrisville has a lot of let property, and doors are a standard turnover item: handles that have been forced, jambs that have been knocked, closers that have been disabled, and skirting that has taken furniture damage. Booked as one visit for a whole unit it is far better value than item by item.

Trim, baseboards and small carpentry

Damaged casing and skirting, mitres that have opened, and gaps at the floor after a flooring change. Profiles in these properties are current so matching is straightforward.

Small carpentry — alcove shelving, boxing in a pipe run, a window seat, replacing builder wire shelving with something that survives real use. Send a photo if you are unsure whether something qualifies.

Getting a price

Photograph the door closed with a close-up of the gap along the top and latch side. For the garage door, photograph the closer and the top of the door, and tell us whether it latches on its own.

Morrisville is about twenty minutes from our base in Apex.