Seasonal humidity
Wood doors, frames and sashes swell in summer humidity and shrink in the dry heating season. This reverses each year and is by far the most common cause.
Basement problem
Doors and windows that suddenly stick or will not latch.
Wood swells in humid weather and shrinks in winter. When a door binds and never comes back, something else is moving.
How urgent is it?
Worth an inspection.
Seasonal binding is ordinary. Binding that does not reverse, especially with cracks or sloping floors, deserves a look.
Likely causes
What usually produces this.
More than one can apply at the same property, which is why the inspection traces the actual path rather than assuming the most common one.
Foundation settlement
When part of the foundation drops, the opening above it goes out of square. Gaps become tapered rather than parallel and the latch no longer meets the strike.
Frost movement
A shallow footing or a porch pier lifted by frost each winter can bind a nearby door predictably in cold weather and release in spring.
Beam or post settlement below
A settling interior post or sagging beam pulls the floor and the partitions above it down, racking door openings on that line.
Framing shrinkage in a newer home
New construction dries and shrinks for the first year or two, which can throw openings slightly out of alignment without any foundation issue.
Hardware, hinges and paint
Loose hinge screws, built-up paint or a settled threshold produce binding that has nothing to do with the structure.
Before anyone visits
What you can check yourself.
None of this requires tools or risk. It makes the inspection faster and the estimate more accurate.
Request an inspection- 01
Does the binding reverse with the seasons, or has it stayed?
- 02
Look at the gap around the closed door: parallel, or wider at one end?
- 03
Check whether the latch still lines up with the strike plate
- 04
Tighten hinge screws and rule out paint build-up first
- 05
Look for new cracks at the corners of nearby door and window openings
- 06
Check whether floors near the affected opening have gone out of level
Common questions
Doors and Windows That Stick
These cover what homeowners ask most often. Your inspection addresses the conditions at your own property.
Do sticking doors always mean foundation problems?
No, and usually they do not. Seasonal humidity is the most common cause by a wide margin, and it reverses each year. Foundation movement produces binding that persists, uneven tapered gaps and misaligned latches, and it rarely arrives alone.
Why do several doors stick on the same side of the house?
That pattern is more suggestive than a single sticking door, because it points at something affecting one area of the structure rather than one piece of wood. It is worth having the foundation and the supports on that side looked at.
Should I plane the door to fix it?
Not before you know why it binds. Planing a door that is binding seasonally leaves a gap in winter, and planing one that binds because the opening is racking removes the evidence while the movement continues.
Service area
Inspected across Greater Burlington.
Burlington, South Burlington, Winooski, Colchester, Essex, Essex Junction, Williston, Shelburne, Charlotte, Hinesburg, Milton, Richmond, Westford, Jericho, Underhill, Cambridge, Jeffersonville, Fairfax and nearby northwestern Vermont towns.
Request local service
Get this looked at properly.
Describe what is happening and when you would like the property inspected.