Hanging Homebase colonial 6 panel doors in non-square frames

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trelello

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Hi,

I wonder if anyone can give me some advice (ideally pitched at a level an idiot could grasp). I am hoping to hang some of Homebase's cheap and cheerful six panel colonial doors in my home, but I have a few elementary stumbling blocks:

1. The doors are around 11mm too tall for the frames. The instructions that come with the doors say that they should not have more than 6mm trimmed from them and suggest that the top should not be trimmed at all. I'm wondering whether this is for structural or aesthetic reasons. Do you suppose it would be catastrophic to cut both ends and to go deeper than recommended?

2. The frames aren't square, with the top part of the frame (sorry I don't know the precise vocabulary for these things) slanting quite noticeably on two of the frames. What I've read elsewhere suggests the doors should be cut to fit the frames (I'm not confident to attempt to alter the frames myself). However, the only tools I have available to me are an electric planer and an electric sander - do you suppose these tools could be used to trim a door to fit a slanted space? How would I go about doing it?

3. If I really balls this up (and I'm determined not to - despite the ridiculous level of inexperience I'm bringing to this, I'm dedicated to going slowly and carefully and taking as much advice as I can get), how much might it cost to get three interior doors hung by someone else (I'm in Coventry)?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Any advice would be very much appreciated.
 
1. The reason that they say 6mm is because these doors are probably hollow and by cutting more than 6mm off you are affecting the structural integrity. That said when we bought our present house the DIY-dingbat (if you saw some of the things he'd done, you'd know why I call him that - and in any case he was an Ozzy) who'd previously owned it had sawn a lot more off the top of our living room door and left a void there - no lipping at all. :( What I did was to saw and plane a strip of 2 x 1 PAR softwood down to fit the gap, trim to length and glue it in place (cramped-up, of course). So you can get away wiith it with a bit of nouse

2. The head being out of level isn't that uncommon on older houses. It can be accommodated using a plane on the door, but a power planer might be a bit too aggressive (unless you can mark accurately and feather the cuts) and I'd therefore suggest a hand (jack) plane as possibly a less frought approach. It can also be done with a circular saw and a straight edge, but that is also not really a beginners technique. Happy to discuss further if you are interested

3. No idea, TBH. I generally won't quote work sight unseen - been burned too often in the past doing that
 
Thanks a lot for the detailed reply JobAndKnock, that's all very helpful. The doors are indeed hollow, so I guess i would hit the cavity sooner or later, although I'm hoping the 6mm stipulation leaves a generous margin of error. I'm interested in what you say about feathering - would that mean making a series of shorter and shorter passes with the planer to create a kind of stepped effect and then using the sander to smooth everything down into a straight incline (which is an idea I had been toying with), or something else entirely? And no worries about number 3, I'm just very tentatively looking for a plan B at the moment.
 
I wish someone woudl find an old 'engineered' door, cut it open and post photos of what is actually inside. These secretive bloody building materials need exposing.
 
As job&knock says, budget doors are basically a limited frame with a covering.

I built a theatre set with cheap doors and the frames were pre sized so I had to trim to fit and cut too much off. As he did, I just trimmed a bit of wood to fill the gap and glued it in.

Obviously mine was "good from the front row" rather than in a home but it worked.
The doors are pretty cheap afaik so not a disaster if you cock it up
 
Gerrydelasel said:
geraldthehamster said:
That is, doors made of wood. You can then remove the amount you need without the doors falling apart.
Click to expand...
Sure?
"Engineered stiles and rails to prevent warping and twisting. Door may be trimmed up to: (H)5, (W)5mm"
Click to expand...
No, sorry, didn't spot that. I assumed it was a bog-standard pine door. Get a bog-standard pine door ;-)

Cheers
Richard
 
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