uPVC Door Adjustment & Realignment in Harrow
Door won’t lock unless you lift the handle and give it a shove? Catching on the frame, scraping the sill, or letting a draught whistle through one corner? Nine times out of ten that isn’t a broken lock. It’s a door that has dropped or gone out of square, and it needs adjusting, not replacing.
I adjust uPVC, composite and wooden doors across Harrow and the surrounding areas: hinges, keeps, and the toe and heel inside the door itself. Most of these are done in under an hour. From £89, up to around £120 if it needs the full job. No call-out fee, and the price is agreed before I start.
uPVC door adjustment: what I actually do
- Hinge adjustment. Most uPVC and composite hinges adjust three ways: height, lateral and compression. Get all three right and the door sits square in the frame again.
- Hinge replacement. When they’re worn past adjusting, or the screw fixings have pulled, adjusting alone won’t hold. New hinges, properly set.
- Toe and heel. Re-packing the glass unit inside the door so the sash sits square again. This is the fix for a genuinely dropped uPVC door, and it’s the step most people have never heard of.
- Keeps and strikers realigned. So the multipoint hooks and rollers meet their keeps cleanly and the door locks without you leaning on it.
- Composite and wooden doors. Hinges, keeps, and easing where a timber door has swollen or dropped on its hinges.
- Compression set properly. So the seal actually seals and the draught stops, without needing a shoulder to shut it.
Is it the door, or is it the lock?
Worth two minutes before you call anyone, and it’ll save you money either way.
Open the door fully, so it’s hanging in mid-air, clear of the frame. Now lift the handle and turn the key.
- Works smoothly with the door open, but not when it’s shut? The mechanism is fine. Your problem is alignment, and this is the right page. The hooks aren’t meeting their keeps.
- Stiff, gritty, or won’t throw even with the door open? That’s the gearbox or the cylinder, not the alignment. That’s a uPVC door lock repair.
Getting this the right way round matters. Plenty of people are sold a whole new multipoint mechanism for a door that just needed twenty minutes on the hinges.
Toe and heel, and why it fixes a dropped door
A uPVC door isn’t a solid slab. It’s a frame with a glass or panel unit sitting inside it, and that unit is what stops the door racking out of square. Over the years the packers underneath settle, the unit drops, and the whole door goes with it: the top corner leans in, the bottom corner drags, and the hooks stop finding their keeps.
Toe and heeling means taking the beads off, lifting the unit back to square on fresh packers, and putting it back so the door is a proper rectangle again. It’s the difference between a door that stays fixed and one that needs the hinges wound over every six months until they run out of adjustment.
Not every dropped door needs it. Plenty just need the hinges set right. I’ll tell you which one you’ve got before I pick up a tool.
A dropped door I realigned: St Peter’s Church, Harrow
The heavy timber door at St Peter’s Church in Harrow had dropped and was binding badly against the frame. On a door that age and weight it isn’t a job you rush: get it wrong and you’re chasing the fault round the frame all afternoon.
I took it back to square and got it shutting cleanly again. No new door, no new frame, no ironwork replaced. Just the door hung and set properly.
The full job, start to finish, at St Peter’s Church in Harrow.
The finished job: both leaves hanging square in the stone arch and shutting properly again.
Before and after. The uneven gap between the two leaves, closed up and even again.
Before and after. The strap hinge reset so the door sits tight to the stone frame.
Independent locksmith, Harrow-based
I work on my own and cover Harrow and the surrounding areas: Watford, Hillingdon, Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Three Rivers and Hertsmere. I do houses, flats, shops, schools and the occasional church door.
If your door has dropped, sticks, or won’t lock without a fight, call me. I’ll tell you honestly whether it’s a quick adjustment or something bigger, and you’ll have the price before I start. See my prices.
Frequently Asked Questions
My uPVC door only locks if I lift the handle and force it. Is that the lock or the door?
Almost always the door. Open it wide, so it’s clear of the frame, and try the handle and key in mid-air. If it works smoothly like that, the mechanism is fine and the door has dropped or gone out of square, so the hooks aren’t lining up with their keeps. If it’s still stiff with the door open, it’s the gearbox, and that’s a lock repair rather than an adjustment.
Can a dropped uPVC door be adjusted, or do I need a new door?
Adjusted, nearly every time. I’ve very rarely met a dropped door that genuinely needed replacing. Usually it’s the hinges, sometimes it’s a toe and heel to lift the glass unit back to square, occasionally it’s both. Anyone who looks at a dropped door and immediately quotes you for a new one is selling doors, not fixing them.
How much does uPVC door adjustment cost?
From £89 for a straightforward hinge and keep adjustment. A bigger job, new hinges or a full toe and heel, is usually around £120. No call-out fee, and you get the price agreed before I touch anything, not after.
Will adjusting the door stop the draught?
Usually yes. A draught down one edge normally means the compression is uneven, so the seal is being squashed on one side and barely touched on the other. Setting the compression evenly across the hinges brings the whole seal into contact. If the seal itself is flattened or split, that gets replaced too.
Do you do wooden and composite doors as well?
Yes. Composite doors use the same style of adjustable hinges and keeps as uPVC, so it’s much the same job. Timber doors are a different animal: they move with the weather, hinges get tired, and screws pull out of old frames. Same principle though. Hang it square, set the keeps, and it shuts properly again.
Got another question? See my full Locksmith FAQs page.