uPVC Door Dropped or Sticking? Here's Why and How It's Fixed

If your front or back door has started catching on the frame, dragging across the carpet or threshold, or needs a shoulder-barge to shut properly, there's a good chance it's dropped slightly on its hinges. It sounds dramatic, but it's one of the most common — and most fixable — uPVC door problems we deal with, and it very rarely means the door itself is at fault.

Why uPVC and composite doors drop

uPVC and composite doors are heavy — a composite door with a steel or timber core can weigh well over 40kg — and every bit of that weight hangs off the hinges day in, day out. Over time, the hinge screws bed into the timber reinforcement inside the frame, or the hinge mechanism itself wears, allowing the whole door to sag by a small amount.

It doesn't take much movement to cause a problem. A drop of just two or three millimetres at the handle side is often enough to make the door catch on the frame, drag on the threshold, or throw the multipoint hooks out of alignment with their keeps so the door won't lock cleanly (see our multipoint locking mechanism explained guide for more on how that mechanism works).

Frequent, heavy use — a busy family front door, or a back door onto a garden that gets used constantly — speeds this process up, as does a door that's been slammed repeatedly rather than closed gently.

Signs your door has dropped

The symptoms are usually fairly consistent and easy to spot once you know what to look for.

• The door catches or scrapes on the frame or threshold, usually at the bottom corner opposite the hinges
• There's a visible gap at the top of the door on the hinge side, or the door sits unevenly in the frame
• The handle feels stiff or heavy to lift, or the key is hard to turn once the handle is up
• The door needs to be lifted slightly or pushed at a particular point to get it to close and lock
• A draught has appeared along one edge that wasn't there before

How a hinge adjustment works

The good news is that most uPVC and composite door hinges are adjustable, usually in three directions — up and down (vertical), side to side (lateral), and in and out (compression, which affects how tightly the door seals against the frame).

Using an Allen key on the hinge cams, the door is lifted and squared back up within the frame, then each hinge is tightened evenly so the weight is shared properly rather than resting on one hinge alone. The door is then tested through a full open-close-lock cycle to make sure the hooks engage the keeps cleanly and the door isn't dragging anywhere.

This is a much smaller job than it sounds — for most doors it's completed in well under an hour, with no need to remove the door from its frame.

When adjustment alone isn't enough

Occasionally the hinges themselves have worn out rather than simply needing tightening — this shows up as the door dropping again within a short time of being adjusted. In that case the hinges need replacing rather than just adjusting, which is a bit more involved but still doesn't require a new door.

In rare cases, particularly on older composite doors, the timber reinforcement around the hinge fixings inside the frame has degraded to the point where the screws won't hold properly. This sometimes means packing or re-reinforcing the fixing points before new hinges go in.

Preventing it happening again

A door that's just been adjusted or fitted with new hinges will last a lot longer with a bit of care — closing it gently rather than slamming it, and avoiding hanging bags or letting children swing on the handle, both reduce the ongoing strain on the hinges.

It's also worth having hinges checked every year or two, ideally alongside a general check of locks and handles, since catching a small drop early is a five-minute adjustment compared with a hinge replacement once it's been left for years.

Call Mark on 07535 916982 or request a callback.