A customer in Walton-on-Thames got in touch because she was having problems locking her garden sliding door.
As soon as I removed the handles, the fault was obvious. The spindle had broken into pieces and was moving freely inside the gearbox, so turning the handles could no longer operate the locking system.
On many doors the mechanism is accessible from the surface, but this one was determined to make life difficult.
The door was extremely heavy and I did not want to remove it from the rollers unless I had to, so I first deglazed it to see whether the mechanism could be reached from inside the profile. No such luck. I reglazed it, then realised I had effectively made the next stage harder for myself. Donut moment. 😄
With the customer’s help I lifted the door off the rollers, only to discover that the mechanism was still inaccessible because it had been sealed inside the profile at the factory.
At that point there was no normal access route. I explained to the customer that I would need to cut a controlled rectangular opening in the door profile to expose the mechanism, and she agreed.
Using a multi-tool, I made a neat access slot, exposed the locking system and removed the failed mechanism.
I fitted a permanent bolt to the frame so the customer could secure the door while I took the mechanism away for further investigation. Once stripped down, the failed part was identified and ordered for the following day.
After fitting the replacement component, the mechanism worked properly again.
Rather than deglaze the door a second time, I lifted it back into position with the customer’s help, refitted the mechanism and adjusted the rollers.
The sliding door was then opening, closing and locking smoothly again.
