A customer in Feltham got in touch because the door had become so difficult to close that the handle was being forced close to breaking point.
The first diagnostic check was the multipoint mechanism with the door open. It worked normally, which immediately told me the lock itself was not the main fault.
Trying the door closed made the problem obvious. There was a huge gap and the door had moved badly out of position after years without adjustment or maintenance.
Because it was a panel door, I used heel-and-toe adjustment to bring it back towards the correct position and then worked through the remaining movement available at the hinges.
Even after that, the door could not be made absolutely perfect because years of being used badly misaligned had left it heavily warped. I made some additional adjustments around the locking mechanism and keeps to get the best possible result from the existing door.
By the end, the door was closing and locking properly again and the draught was reduced dramatically — around 90% compared with where we started.
It was a good example of why a stiff door should be investigated before years of forcing it turn a simple adjustment into permanent distortion.
