| By Greg Vanden Berge
Just a few months ago I went over to repair a
pocket door that was closing at a weird angle. This was the first time
I had ran into this sort of situation and was definitely confused. I
got a flashlight and started looking inside the pocket door frame. I
had a hard time finding the problem but when I did it was obvious.
As the pocket door was sliding closed it would work
perfectly but when you went to open it the bottom of the door would
stick out about an inch and a half passed the door jam. The problem
turned out to be the track was missing a screw in the very back and as
the door slid back into the frame the tracking would hang down at an
angle from the weight of the door. There was no way to reach the screw
because it was at that very back of the pocket door frame near the
framing itself.
In order to fix the pocket door problem I was going
to have to remove a good sized area of the plastered wall at the upper
right hand corner of the pocket door frame. This was the only thing I
could think of and would require a simple wall patch and some paint to
make the repair complete.
This job took me about one hour to cut the hole and
replaced the screw that had fallen out of the pocket door tracking. I
then use some fast setting drywall plaster and some fiberglass drywall
tape to repair the wall. This took another hour to finish the drywall
properly.
Some pocket door problems are a little easier to
repair than this one. Most pocket doors seemed to have problems sliding
and eventually are left closed, never to be used again.
Painting the doors over and over again can actually
add to the thickness of the door or excessive moisture in the home over
long periods of time can also cause the door to swell preventing it from
opening properly.
Painting the rollers themselves or the track that
the rollers ride in can create a problem with rolling the door easily
and effortlessly. If the pocket door rollers or tracking is damaged
they will have to be repaired or replaced, obviously. Some people
actually spray silicon on the rollers or grease the pocket door wheels
and over time the track becomes caked with dried grease and dirt making
the door hard to open and close
Here's one most people don't ever think about and
yet I have faced this problem more than once. “The Dreaded Picture
Hanger”. Most people don't realize that the pocket door will not
operate very well with a nail driven through it. I have had people
complain about their pocket door not operating properly but they can
wiggle it a little.
When I come upon a situation like this it usually
just requires removing the nail that the picture is hung upon.
I have also seen instances where the home has been
remodeled and new floor trim or door trim has been installed. The
finish carpenter using his nail gun without changing to a shorter nail
has himself nailed the pocket door shut. This could be a big problem
because the nails are so thin they could be hard to remove.
Well that's all I can think of for pocket door
problems that I have ran into for now. Until the next article have fun
remodeling your home.
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