This is the main door to my house.
It’s massive. What you can’t see is how thick and heavy it is. This is a door that would stand up to an assault by orcs armed with Grond. In the winter it’s the only door out of the house to a path cleared of snow, so you’re not getting in if we don’t let you.
The only problem is that not only is it heavy, but in the recent cold weather the shape of the frame has shifted and is clamping down on the door, so it massively resists movement. Right now, going out that door is a difficult enterprise, requiring that we grab that door knob and lean back with all our weight to pull it out; coming in requires turning the knob and bashing it with your shoulder. It really needs readjustment.
This prelude is to explain why I have sprained my wrist by trying to open a door. It was that door. Right now my wrist is swollen and bruised, changing colors — last night it was yellow and green, but today it’s more of a dark grey. Yes, it hurts. Why am I typing? I need to stop. Ouch. Bye.
Yikes! That sucks. Hope you recover and feel better soon.
Erm, suggestion : do have the ability / program / app to use some kinda voice typing thing where you speak and the words appear on screen?
A lubricant would help. WD 40/ 3 in One. Give something a try. Won’t take much.
If either the frame or door are wooden and you have an orbital or belt sander, you can identify the areas that are causing the friction and sand them down. I had the same problem and fixed it that manner.
Four hinges‽ Mine only have two or three. So yes, I can see how thick and heavy your door is. And the knob seems unusually far from the edge of the door.
I don’t understand the window near the bottom of the door. Is that so your pets can see who is coming?
I hope for your quick recovery, PZ. It’s time to use your brain instead of injuring yourself. Get out the block plane, remove the door from its hinges and plane down the sticking part of the door. (get some of your students to help in exchange for extra credit in a course)
I agree with reflectory. My house was built in 1987. There’s been some settling and shifting over the years. I’ve had to sand down a few edges to get the doors to swing freely. But my doors are nothing like that behemoth of yours. It appears to be solid hardwood. Sanding it properly might require hiring someone.
@5 planing
OK, maybe the door needs planing. But late January is not the time to take your door off in Morris, Minnesota.
An easy thing to try is to tighten all the hinge screws. They may have come a little loose allowing the door to tip against the frame.
I mean, just looking out the upper window, it’s plainly obvious you got way too much snow piled up out there!
Not WD40. Lubricate with wax.
@10
But not this one.
Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax
Okay, yes, it’s heavy. And there has been some settling, and/or shifting, and/or swelling (of the wood…that’s still not coming out right), and/or hinge-pulling. Sure. Fine. I hope you recover quickly, PZ, and as a medical person I REALLY appreciated Reginald’s (@4) snippet explaining bruise resorption.
But let’s not overlook the fact that the door is GORGEOUS. All that blond wood, with the lightly-figured grain and symmetrical glass-block windows top and bottom that evoke the same blocks of the side light. It’s a sight to behold!
One question, though: I’m a California boy. What’s that white stuff piled outside?
Grond won’t do the orcs any good if they haven’t got any trolls to get the machine going. I can only say: You don’t know what your Tolkien about!
The front door on my parents’ old house was absolutely ridiculous. No major cutouts, barely a peep-hole, oak, with a steel plate running through the door. The people they bought the house from left the country in a hurry and weren’t around for the sale.
IT was a gorgeous door, but it took some real muscle to move.
reflectory@#3:
If either the frame or door are wooden and you have an orbital or belt sander, you can identify the areas that are causing the friction and sand them down.
This. And to identify where the stickage is, simply draw a crayon line around the door’s contact zone, close it, and see where the crayon is abraded. Then sand and wax the door. Probably a good bit of your problem is moisture causing the wood to expand. Penetrating oils like WD40 also cause wood to expand. A sander is a slow gentle way to do it, but an angle grinder with a flap disk will make the wood vanish remarkably quickly. It probably doesn’t take much.
Also (lots of hinges! you can tell it’s heavy!) make sure the screws in the hinges are tight and give them a shot of wax. If the screws loosen through moisture cycling, the door will begin to hit on the far bottom. If that area’s looking scraped, go for the hinges first. If the hinges are loose, unscrew each screw one at a time, put a bit of gorilla glue on it, and screw it back in tightly. Unfortunately, Minnesota cold is not good for urethanes so wait ’till summer.
Yeah, but removing material will add to the air gap, and enable cold air to seep in more easily.
This will be more noticeable when the expansion is not as severe, obs.
@ ^ Door snakes? A.ka. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draught_excluder
StevoR, sure. Lotek.
(Better to actually fix things, no? Coping is the fallback)
[sorry, but; been reading stuff from C19]
Trufax; stroking or not, I am as genuine as could be.
I’ve followed PZ since he began his .org in his lab back in the day.
(My birthday, actually, and the blognym tickled me)
My very first comment ever was in November 2005.
I was there when he moved to ScienceBlogs.
Heyday of New Atheism, an asteroid, humanitarian awards. Pharyngulation.
I was there in the very first ever post in FreethoughBlogs.
Anyway. Fame and fortune were there for the plucking, for the insincere. The grifters.
—
Kudos, PZ.
You could always (and yet could) cash in ($$$) much as others who did do so.
You know to whom I refer.
You did not.
Like a Christian Martyr, you are; but your principles and your evident adherence to them — I leave aside your pedagogy — are exemplary.
—
(You know, the virtue of speaking pure truth is you can never be shown wrong, other than with manufactured bullshit)
A mighty mighty door, looks like a door that could even keep spiders inside…
@ ^
I was looking for the little hinged flap to let the spiders in.
@ Morales
Yeah we know grampa. Being an unapologetic troll for twenty years isn’t the defense against being called an unapologetic troll that you think it is.
Being an unapologetic would-be detractor and hatefanboi for a mere three years (do you dispute that?) is its own accusation, no?
(One of us is truly a troll, and it ain’t me)
Remember how you have persistently and stupidly accused chigau of being a basement boy?
(She was here back at the beginning. Timelines don’t align)
—
Someone I actually respect, BTW, as I do pretty much all the OMs. not that you’d fucking know about that, with your snide claims about some sort of cultish thingy. Bob the Unsilent, I know you.
Bah.
(You are akin to sewer gas)
[BTW, I have no progeny. That is, not a ‘granpa’. In any sense.
Your attempted ageist slur fails on multiple levels, O misnymed one]
I followed PZ back in the 90s on usenet before the blogging, recall his mention starting up that thing, and had read William Ballard in the original. I even strongly disliked Dawkins way back then. So there.
The weather penny-locked your door.
What charley @ #8 said. I can see in the photo that the door has done what every heavy door tends to do. The left side (as shown) seems to have plenty of space at the bottom, but touches the frame at the top. There doesn’t seem to be a corresponding increase in space at the right (hinge) side, which could mean that the frame is also slightly deformed. This is a known problem, and heavy doors are often installed with two hinges next to each other at the top, instead of four equidistantly spaced ones, with one doing all the work and the others doing not much at all.
You can try tightening the screws (especially for the top hinge, and especially those between the hinge and the door). If that is not enough, you have to make the top hinge hold the door closer to the frame. You can do this by removing the top hinge and removing a small amount of material from the door, making it sit a little deeper, and pulling the top-right of the door closer to the frame. (You may want to do the same for the second hinge from the top.) Or swap the tired top hinge with the third one from the top, which should be like new. You can do this without removing the door, if you don’t attempt to close it without the top hinge.
Looking at the image, there is a slightly larger gap at the bottom on the latch side. So, I agree, try tightening the hinge screws first. However, speaking as a retired engineer, if that doesn’t work then removing a SMALLl amount of material where it binds won’t dramatically increase air incursion, because the door seat protrudes some. And, if air incursion happens, just add a little thin weather stripping along entire ledge of the door jamb where the door seats when latched.
Off topic, but pertinent to PZ’s interests:
https://www.livescience.com/animals/spiders/zombie-spiders-infected-by-never-before-seen-fungus-discovered-on-grounds-of-destroyed-irish-castle
Many of the suggestions here are probably correct, if done by a professional carpenter. But not cost-effective if tried by an amateur. I’ve been there.