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Calera, Alabama · Shelby County

French Door Repair in Calera, AL

Exterior French doors take weather on two large glazed leaves and seal along a vertical joint in the middle, which is the hardest place in a house to keep sealed. Getting the astragal and weatherstrip right is most of the job.

  • Repair first, replace last
  • Homes & businesses
  • Shelby County covered
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French Door Repair diagram
French Door Repair — Calera, Alabama

Calera sits in Shelby County, and our work here runs from Downtown Calera out past the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, with Alabaster and Pelham close enough that we are usually in the area anyway.

A lot of what we see in Shelby County comes down to age. Houses built decades ago have solid frames with tired hardware; houses built recently have sound hardware in frames that are still settling.

Broken, stuck, or will not lock?Talk to someone who works on these every day.

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The french door repair problems we see most in Calera

These are the french door repair faults we are called out to most often in Calera. If you recognise one, the underlying cause is usually the second half of the line.

  • Water coming in at the thresholdFailed sill seal or a threshold that has deteriorated.
  • The gearbox makes a grinding noise when the handle is liftedWear inside the multipoint gearbox, which usually fails completely soon after this starts.
  • One door swings open on its ownHinge line out of plumb on that leaf.
  • The flush bolts on the inactive leaf need forcingMisaligned keepers, or corrosion in the bolt housings.
  • The doors bind in summer and are loose in winterSeasonal wood movement compounding an existing alignment problem.
  • The doors rub where they meetOne or both leaves have dropped on their hinges.

One call gets you an answer.We will tell you what is wrong and what it takes to fix.

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Calera conditions and french door repair

The metro runs humid from April to October, then flips to freezing nights in January, and hardware that was fine in August starts binding in winter.

Grit in the flush bolt sockets and the multipoint keepers stops those components seating fully, which means the doors are only partially locked even when the handle feels normal.

Storm wind on a pair of French doors loads the meeting stile and the flush bolts, and if the inactive leaf is not solidly bolted top and bottom, the wind will find that out for you.

We factor that in on every french door repair job around the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum and the rest of Calera.

Local factors we account for in Calera: grit and dust and storm wind — typical of the Birmingham metro.

Get a real diagnosis, not a sales pitch.We fix doors for a living.

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French door repair work we handle in Calera

  • Multipoint lock repairRepairing and replacing multipoint gearboxes, drive rods and keepers.
  • Frame squaringCorrecting frames that have moved and taken the doors out with them.
  • Individual lite glass replacementReplacing failed or broken glass in single lites without replacing the whole door.
  • Alignment and reveal correctionSetting both leaves so the reveal is even and the doors meet cleanly top to bottom.
  • Flush bolt repairHead and sill flush bolts on the inactive leaf repaired or replaced.
  • Handle and lockset replacementMatched handle sets and cylinders for French door pairs.
  • Astragal and weatherstrip replacementNew seals on the meeting stile so the middle joint actually closes.

One call gets you an answer.We will tell you what is wrong and what it takes to fix.

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Our french door repair process

  1. Measure the reveal all the way roundThe gap pattern between the leaves and the frame tells us what has moved before we touch any hardware.
  2. Check each leaf on its ownWith the inactive leaf bolted, we test the active one, then reverse it. Faults that look shared usually are not.
  3. Correct the hinges before the hardwareMultipoint locks and flush bolts cannot be adjusted into working if the door is sitting in the wrong place.
  4. Rebuild the seal at the meeting stileAstragal and weatherstrip get replaced together, because that centre joint is where the draft and the water come through. Around the metro we clear red clay dust out of tracks and mechanisms first, because it turns into grinding paste and will destroy new parts.
  5. Set the locking hardwareKeepers adjusted so the shootbolts engage top and bottom with the handle lifting smoothly and no forcing.
  6. Cycle both leaves fullyOpen, close and lock each leaf several times, including the flush bolts, before we call it finished.

One call gets you an answer.We will tell you what is wrong and what it takes to fix.

Click to Call (205) 619-2895

What affects the cost of french door repair in Calera

Every french door repair call in Shelby County is a little different, and the cost follows what the door actually needs:

  • glass replacement in individual lites
  • whether one leaf or both need re-hanging
  • whether the frame itself has moved and needs correcting
  • multipoint lock repair versus full gearbox replacement
  • astragal, weatherstrip and threshold replacement

Call and describe what the door is doing. In most cases we can tell you over the phone which of those applies to you before anyone drives out to Calera.

Most doors we see are repairable.Call and find out before you price a replacement.

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Areas we cover for french door repair in Calera

Our Calera service area includes Downtown Calera, the Camp Branch corridor and Timberline and the surrounding Shelby County communities, out around the Heart of Dixie Railroad Museum, the I-65 interchange and Timberline Golf Club.

Service area: Calera, Shelby County, Alabama — and the surrounding communities.

We also cover the nearby Shelby County and the Birmingham metro communities listed further down this page.

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

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French door repair in Calera: questions we get asked

Can one lite of glass be replaced or does the whole door need doing?

Individual lites can normally be replaced on their own. That is one of the advantages of a true divided or simulated divided light door.

Why will my multipoint lock not throw anymore?

The door has moved, so the lock points no longer line up with their keepers in the frame. Forcing the handle in that state is how the gearbox breaks, so it is worth correcting the alignment before something expensive fails.

How long does French door repair take?

Most alignment and weatherstrip jobs in Calera take two to four hours. Multipoint gearbox replacement or glass work can add time, especially if parts need ordering for a specific manufacturer.

Do you work on interior French doors too?

Yes. Interior pairs have simpler hardware but exactly the same alignment problems, and they are usually a quick fix.

My French doors bind in summer but are fine in winter. Is that normal?

Some seasonal movement is normal in Calera, but if it is bad enough to stop the door closing, there is usually an underlying alignment problem that the seasonal movement is pushing over the edge.

There is a draft right down the middle of my French doors. What fixes it?

The astragal weatherstrip on the meeting stile. It compresses flat over time and stops sealing, and it is a straightforward replacement that makes a large difference in Calera winters.

Need it looked at soon?Call and we will tell you honestly when we can get there.

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Other door repair services in Calera


French Door Repair near Calera

We cover the surrounding Shelby County and the Birmingham metro communities as well:

All door repair services in Calera  ·  French Door Repair across Alabama  ·  All Alabama service areas

Broken, stuck, or will not lock?Talk to someone who works on these every day.

Click to Call (205) 619-2895
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