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Riverside, Alabama · St. Clair County

French Door Repair in Riverside, AL

French doors are two heavy doors meeting in the middle with nothing but hardware holding the alignment. When one leaf drops even slightly, the pair stops meeting cleanly and everything downstream stops working: the latch, the...

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French Door Repair diagram
French Door Repair — Riverside, Alabama

Riverside is part of our regular St. Clair County territory, and between the US-78 corridor, Depot Street and the Logan Martin Lake area we are here most weeks.

A lot of what we see in St. Clair 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.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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Signs you need french door repair in Riverside

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

  • One door swings open on its ownHinge line out of plumb on that leaf.
  • The doors bind in summer and are loose in winterSeasonal wood movement compounding an existing alignment problem.
  • The multipoint locks at the top but not the bottomThe active leaf has dropped, so the lower keeper is now below the shootbolt.
  • The astragal weatherstrip is compressed flat in one areaPoint loading where the leaves bind, and the seal has stopped working there.
  • You can see the meeting stiles are no longer parallelOne leaf has racked, which no amount of adjustment at the lock will correct.
  • Condensation in one of the litesFailed insulated glass in a single lite, replaceable on its own.

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

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What Riverside weather does to french door repair

Storms coming off the ridges dump a lot of water in a short time, and any door with a compromised threshold pan will show it on the floor inside.

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.

The bottom of the meeting stile is the hardest place on a house to keep watertight, and heavy rain against a French door pair will find any weakness in the sill seal or the threshold there.

We factor that in on every french door repair job around Logan Martin Lake and the rest of Riverside.

Local factors we account for in Riverside: storm wind and heavy rainfall — typical of the Appalachian foothills.

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

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What we repair

  • Multipoint lock repairRepairing and replacing multipoint gearboxes, drive rods and keepers.
  • Hinge repair and re-hangingCorrecting sag with proper fasteners into framing and re-hanging leaves plumb.
  • Alignment and reveal correctionSetting both leaves so the reveal is even and the doors meet cleanly top to bottom.
  • Interior French door serviceAlignment, hardware and hinge work on interior pairs.
  • Frame squaringCorrecting frames that have moved and taken the doors out with them.
  • Threshold and sill workNew adjustable thresholds and sill seals under a pair of doors.
  • Individual lite glass replacementReplacing failed or broken glass in single lites without replacing the whole door.

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

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How we approach french door repair

  1. Look at the pair as one assemblyFrench doors fail as a pair. Adjusting one leaf without reference to the other just moves the problem across.
  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. In the foothills we check exposure on each elevation, since a door on the weather side ages at a completely different rate to one that is sheltered.
  3. Correct the hinges firstA dropped leaf makes every lock and seal fault worse. Hinges and fixings get sorted before the multipoint is touched.
  4. Rebuild the seal at the meeting stileAstragal weatherstrip is the hardest working seal on the door and it is usually the one that has been ignored.
  5. Set the locking hardwareKeepers adjusted so the shootbolts engage top and bottom with the handle lifting smoothly and no forcing.
  6. Check it seals along its lengthWe look for daylight and feel for draft down the full height of the meeting stile, not just at eye level.

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

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What affects the cost of french door repair in Riverside

There is no single price for french door repair in Riverside, because two doors with identical symptoms can need very different work. Here is what makes the difference:

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

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

Click to Call (205) 619-2895

Areas we cover for french door repair in Riverside

Riverside coverage runs across the US-78 corridor and Depot Street, and out to the areas around Logan Martin Lake and the Coosa River.

Service area: Riverside, St. Clair County, Alabama — and the surrounding communities.

We also cover the nearby St. Clair County and the Appalachian foothills communities listed further down this page.

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

Click to Call (205) 619-2895

French door repair in Riverside: questions we get asked

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.

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.

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

Some seasonal movement is normal in Riverside, 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.

Are French doors less secure than a single door?

They can be, because there are two leaves and a joint in the middle. Reinforced strikes, solid flush bolts and long fasteners into the framing make a big difference and are inexpensive.

How do I stop water coming in under my French doors?

Usually the threshold seal and the sill pan. A pair of exterior French doors has a hard job at the bottom of the meeting stile, and in St. Clair County storms that is where water finds its way in.

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.

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

Click to Call (205) 619-2895

Other door repair services in Riverside


French Door Repair near Riverside

We cover the surrounding St. Clair County and the Appalachian foothills communities as well:

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

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
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