Upvc door hinge tweak-how?

[zoothorn]

Hi chaps,

 

I need to adjust my front door which sticks at the btm frame, but have unusual looking door hinges.
 

I've seen YouTube clips of flag hinges, & their adjustments.. but nothing on my type. Also I have 4x too which also seems a bit unusual! Any ideas? Thanks if so.

 

Zoot.

 

 

 

[nod]

You can normally remove the covers on the hinges to reveal the adjuster screws 

If the covers don’t remove or flick back The adjustment is likely to be an allen key to the bottom of the hinge 

[zoothorn]

1 hour ago, nod said:

You can normally remove the covers on the hinges to reveal the adjuster screws 

If the covers don’t remove or flick back The adjustment is likely to be an allen key to the bottom of the hinge 

Hi nod, thanks for that. Ok I will tentatively poke the big white section from the exterior & see if it pops off or something. I see tiny small 2mm allen head bolts, but not on the location that the single larger 5mm or 6mm adjustment allen bolt seems to be on say flag hinges.
 

Ideal if anyone has done it on this type of hinge.

 

Thanks zH

[nod]

Hi Zoot

 

Post a closeup tomorrow 

Some are really difficult to open You tend to have to open the door wide remove the tiny screw and pokke a flat head driver in to release the spring loaded 

[Gone West]

15 hours ago, zoothorn said:

I need to adjust my front door which sticks at the btm frame, but have unusual looking door hinges.

This document has details on pages seven and nine that should help you. Your hinges look the same as ours, and if so, are easy to adjust. If it's not possible to achieve the amount of adjustment you need and you have a large pane of glass you can achieve a similar effect by heeling and toeing. It's all in the guide.

 

Modern UPVC Installation Guide.pdf

Edited Saturday at 07:40 by Gone West

[zoothorn]

6 hours ago, Gone West said:

This document has details on pages seven and nine that should help you. Your hinges look the same as ours, and if so, are easy to adjust. If it's not possible to achieve the amount of adjustment you need and you have a large pane of glass you can achieve a similar effect by heeling and toeing. It's all in the guide.

 

Modern UPVC Installation Guide.pdf 995.29 kB · 3 downloads

Hi there GW,

 

grateful for that. Gets me a bit closer, but I'm still not seeing how.

 

On page 9 it shows a similar looking hinge, & the 'vertical' adjustment is similar it seems via the same spanner screw.. but crucially not for 'horizontal' adjustment, which is what I need (door handle side's just dropped down 5mm).

 

Here's a corner pic of hinge/ so I've opened the door, & taken photo standing on the outside doomat.

And a closer photo from the inside, with door closed: no adjustment screw visible here.

 

 

[ProDave]

15 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

but crucially not for 'horizontal' adjustment, which is what I need (door handle side's just dropped down 5mm).

Are you saying, that if you look at the bottom of the door as it closes, the hinge side is correct, but the outer edge of the door bottom is too close to the outer edge of the door frame bottom and that is where it is catching?

[zoothorn]

10 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Are you saying, that if you look at the bottom of the door as it closes, the hinge side is correct, but the outer edge of the door bottom is too close to the outer edge of the door frame bottom and that is where it is catching?

Hi ProDave,

 

yes. But just raising the whole door up vertically, will cure the problem but still mean the door is on slant (horizontally). So surely I just need to make it horizontal, IE raising -just- the handle-side of the door up (not the whole door) in order to avoid my door clash at the sill.

 

The clash is on the handle-side, the sill below. The hinge side is the correct 5mm gap. So my door has fallen down twds the handle side.

[zoothorn]

@ProDave

 

Two blue squares top of door. LH one is 60mm high. RH one is 70mm high. Door dips down twds R.. hopefully my photo also shows the slant R, relative to the frame:

 

 

Edited Saturday at 14:42 by zoothorn

[ProDave]

20 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Hi ProDave,

 

yes. But just raising the whole door up vertically, will cure the problem but still mean the door is on slant (horizontally). So surely I just need to make it horizontal, IE raising -just- the handle-side of the door up (not the whole door) in order to avoid my door clash at the sill.

 

The clash is on the handle-side, the sill below. The hinge side is the correct 5mm gap. So my door has fallen down twds the handle side.

If you raise the hinge side, that may start to clash with the top before the outer side has lifted enough to clear the cill.

 

Your issue seems to be the glass unit has tilted or moved and putting undue pressure on the outer edge deforming the frame.  You need the glass removed and refitted correctly.  the alignment of the glass inside the frame is called heel & toeing and by using packers and wedges the glass is set to place all it's weight on the inner, hinge side at the bottom with further wedges to stop the resulting outward tilting force rotating the glass in the frame.

 

You want a glass fitter to come and do this for you.

 

EDIT:  seeing your post with pictures you can see the upper glass panel has rotated in the frame just as I described.  The fitter would neet to take the glass and the solid bottom infil panel out, square up the frame, and refit both with the correct setup of the packers.

[Big Jimbo]

49 minutes ago, ProDave said:

EDIT:  seeing your post with pictures you can see the upper glass panel has rotated in the frame just as I described.  The fitter would neet to take the glass and the solid bottom infil panel out, square up the frame, and refit both with the correct setup of the packers.

@ProDave is spot on Zoot the Hoot. Door beads out. Bottom panel, and glass removed. Then a toe and heel job. A local window fitter would love that job on his way home. £100 cash and a cup of tea max.

On another note. Dis you ever get your workshop up and running ?

[Gone West]

1 hour ago, zoothorn said:

The clash is on the handle-side, the sill below. The hinge side is the correct 5mm gap. So my door has fallen down twds the handle side.

As I mentioned before and as has been said again, it needs heeling and toeing, as shown on page 7 of the manual I attached. I installed a fully glazed door a couple of weeks ago, and had to heel and toe it to get it to sit square in the frame.

[zoothorn]

@ProDave

 

Apologies but I'm not understanding. I think my description &/ or my photo above didn't show what I intended.

 

Ok in this photo below, I have two blue markers. On the L one you may be able to see I've written 60mm, this is the height distance between the top of the door here & -let's call the following bit horizontal- the timber rail thing above the door. 
 

On the R blue marker, I've written on it 70mm. The Height from door here, to timber rail thing above. I've also made this one physically a taller blue rectangle for clarity.

Also I hope, you can actually see an angle discrepancy between the timber bit above the door (again let's call this horizontal) & the top of the door: the door dips down Rightwards, compared to the fixed timber bit above.

 

So, clearly with 10mm difference L to R, the door frame, is simply in need of adjusting to horizontal. I don't understand how repositioning the glass section (which I know how these fit in/ done this job on my windows) within will make the door frame's position around it, any different. 
 

 

[zoothorn]

1 hour ago, Big Jimbo said:

@ProDave is spot on Zoot the Hoot. Door beads out. Bottom panel, and glass removed. Then a toe and heel job. A local window fitter would love that job on his way home. £100 cash and a cup of tea max.

On another note. Dis you ever get your workshop up and running ?

Hi Big J,

 

I really can't afford £100 to fix this- it's a diy tweak, or it's left as it is.

 

Yes I'm sure I posted some pics of my workshop? Benches/ worktops made, cheapo placcy tool wall hanger things. It's great (remarkably cool in the recent heat, & reasonably 'warm feeling' in the winter without CH used too). Only trouble is, as soon a it was completed, my workshop work has dried up. Urgh.

 

 

[zoothorn]

This is exaggerated obviously, but it shows the principle:

 

 

 

 

Edited Saturday at 17:15 by zoothorn

[-rick-]

Is the door actually square though? I believe what the others are saying is that the door frame has likely sagged due to the inserts and is now more of a parallelogram than a rectangle.

 

I'm just regurgitating what I've seen discussed here and elsewhere before so take the others experience with more weight but I believe this is fairly common in windows and doors (other threads on here and videos on youtube if you search) and a relatively easy fix by removal and refitting the glass.

[ProDave]

You sketch is wrong. The hing side of the door is still tight to the frame, not as you have sketched.  Instead the door is no longer square.  If you put a big square to the corners of the door, you would see they are no longer right angles.

[zoothorn]

16 hours ago, -rick- said:

Is the door actually square though? I believe what the others are saying is that the door frame has likely sagged due to the inserts and is now more of a parallelogram than a rectangle.

 

I'm just regurgitating what I've seen discussed here and elsewhere before so take the others experience with more weight but I believe this is fairly common in windows and doors (other threads on here and videos on youtube if you search) and a relatively easy fix by removal and refitting the glass.

Hi Rick,

 

thanks for that- it's exactly this simplification that I kinda need (unlike you all- building xyz is tricky to get the innitial gist of I find.. but once I do, it's downhill).

 

Aha, so the door "frame" that being the actual outer section of the door, has become out of shape. I can't see how that is, as it looks square, no tiny gaps in the plastic corners telling me so, & the glass within square relative to it too, & don't have a huge square to put on to tell.

 

I have looked at toe & heel videos now though. But what I can't understand is how levering the gap above the glass bigger, to fit in packers to lift the top of the door up a bit, doesn't just as much push the glass down. And how the glass seems to magically stay perfectly in place, & just the door outer "frame" part of it moves up.

 

But understand the principle that however this magic trick actually works, this is the method I need to do, to solve my clash issue. I just always like to understand it first: invariably this takes me a heck of alot of time.

 

Thanks, zh

[zoothorn]

17 hours ago, ProDave said:

You sketch is wrong. The hing side of the door is still tight to the frame, not as you have sketched.  Instead the door is no longer square.  If you put a big square to the corners of the door, you would see they are no longer right angles.

Hi ProDave,

 

yes I realised the hinges I drew weren't right.. but still the door as a tilted [yet still square] rectangle which just needs the whole thing repositioning level (ie the whole thing) idea is effectively shown in my scribble.

 

You see this is simply what I see, by standing back & looking at it. I don't see any odd corner angles: my cabin hut door.. yes has your one-side droop badly & very obvious standing back.
 

If I were to adjust the hinges, say if there were obvious allen bolts I could get to, the hinges would -still- stay in the exact place they are in a vertical line.. just the door rectangle will change, from a slightly tilted one (which -is- simply what my eyes see, & blue markers confirm) to a level one. 
 

So I'm still not entirely sure if it's a hinge adjustment, or this strange toe & heel idea, because I don't have a huge square to tell me if the door is fractionally a trapezoid, or whatever the term is to describe an oblique rectangle.

 

Continually puzzled.. zh

Edited Sunday at 10:21 by zoothorn

[ProDave]

Given the door is a rectangle, if the bottom right (outside) corner was 5mm too low then if that was down to the hinges sagging then the upper left corner would have pulled about 10mm away from the frame.  If that had happened, then the 10mm gap would be obvious, and the door top right would be carching on the frame.

 

So although you don't want to believe it, the issue is caused by the door frame no longer being a right angled rectangle but the frame has distorted.

 

The basic problem is the actual door frame is not very strong.  So if the weight of the glass was evenly distributed along it's bottom edge, it's weight would distort the frame over time as it has done.  So the heel and toeing thing is to try and pack it so the weight of the glass sits almost entirely on the hinge side.  That would make the glass want to tilt away from the hinge side, so that's where the top packers come in to prevent that.

 

There is only one way this is going to be resolved by having the glass removed and re fitted properly after squaring up the door frame.

[zoothorn]

@ProDave 

Better sketch: the tilt is exaggerated yes, but this is still what everything tells me, is the basic situation I have. 
 

IE. If A is 5mm less than B, & C is also less than D.. doesn't that tell me that the door is square, & the whole thing just needs levelling.. rather than trying to 'reform' the door shape via the toe & heel idea-?
 

 

 

 

 

 

[-rick-]

If your door is not square you should be able to tell by measuring the diagonals. If it was square the measurement from bottom left to top right should be the same as from top left to bottom right. If its not square the length will be different.

[zoothorn]

On 24/08/2025 at 11:51, -rick- said:

If your door is not square you should be able to tell by measuring the diagonals. If it was square the measurement from bottom left to top right should be the same as from top left to bottom right. If its not square the length will be different.

Hi rick, that seems complete sense to me. Which I've just done.. & both measure 79-1/8".

 

Hmm. So although I understand the idea of the toe & heel fine, this does kinda confirms my hunch that it possibly isn't the tweak I need to do. I don't want to 'stretch' the door 'wrong' just to solve the issue: that doesn't seem too sensible an approach.. unless.. I can 1st confirm door has sunk down on -just- the lock side.

 

I think it's surely safer to at least -try- the hinge adjustment method.. if I can find a way to access the tweak-screw that is. Four hinges isn't gonna make the job easy tho.

 

Why even diddy jobs seem turn into a building mind-meld for me?! Argh! 🙂
 

 

Edited yesterday at 13:16 by zoothorn

[-rick-]

1 minute ago, zoothorn said:

Hmm. So although I understand the idea of the toe & heel fine, this does kinda confirms my hunch that it possibly isn't the tweak I need to do.

 

I tend to agree but at this point I'm out of knowledge/experience to help. I'm sure others will step in if further help is needed.

 

1 minute ago, zoothorn said:

Why even diddy jobs seem turn into a building mind-meld for me?! Argh! 🙂

 

Seems like the natural state of things. Humans tend to underestimate the complexity of things they don't understand/lack experience in and while we learn the specific case we don't necessarily adjust our handling of future unknowns.

 

Good luck!

[dpmiller]

how does the door look like it's fitting into the frame as it closes- are any of the latchy bits rubbing anywhere?