Greater Lansing
Doors, locks & hardware
A door that will not shut is almost never the door — it is the hinges, a frame gone out of square, or a strike plate an eighth of an inch out. Planing it is the fix that looks fastest and is the one you pay for again in the other season.
What is actually wrong
A door that will not shut is almost never the door. It is the hinges, the frame being out of square, the strike plate in the wrong place by an eighth of an inch, or a floor that has moved. Planing the door is the fix that looks fastest and is the one that makes it worse in the other season.
This is quiet, unglamorous, high-frequency work and it is a large share of what actually gets invoiced — doors, screens, locks and hardware come up on the repair list of almost every occupied property.
Where this stops
When it is not a handyman job
This is at the top of the page rather than the bottom because getting it wrong costs you a wasted visit. Insured, and no contractor license is claimed or implied — the Michigan residential builder license is not held.
- Automatic and powered door operators are not taken on.
- Fire-rated door assemblies are only worked on where the repair keeps the rating intact; anything that would not is referred.
- Structural alteration of an opening — moving or widening it — is licensed builder scope and is not taken on.
The work itself
What actually gets done
Re-hanging, shimming and squaring so the door closes on its own weight rather than being persuaded.
Hinge, strike, latch and closer replacement.
Lock and deadbolt replacement, keypad locks, and re-keying to a single key.
Screen and storm door repair and replacement, including the panels that get put through.
Weather stripping and thresholds, which is usually the reason a room is cold rather than the window.
Commercial door leveling, hinge rebuild and push-bar hardware.
This work sits inside Carpentry, which carries the invoiced price bands for the trade with the sample size printed beside every figure.
What it costs
There is no price list for this, and here is what actually decides the number.
The same three words describe a twenty-minute job and a two-day one. Rather than publish a figure that is wrong for one of them, here is what moves it — so you can work out roughly which end of it you are at before anybody comes out.
Whether the door itself is sound. Re-hanging an existing door and supplying a new slab are different numbers.
Whether the frame is square, and what caused it not to be. A settled frame is a bigger conversation than a dropped hinge.
Interior or exterior. An exterior door carries weather stripping, a threshold and a lock, and it has to be right in both seasons.
How many. Six doors in one visit is a different price per door from one door on its own, and that is where most of the saving on this work is.
Commercial hardware, which is heavier, ordered rather than stocked, and has to keep working several hundred times a day.
How to get a real number
Somebody comes out, looks at it properly, and you get a fixed price in writing with the work set out line by line and the exclusions written down as plainly as the inclusions. Coming out to do that is not charged for, and neither is working out what is wrong. If something is found once a wall or a floor is open, it is priced as a written change order and you decide before the work carries on rather than after it is billed. Materials are supplied at cost with the receipt attached, first-time customers get 10% off labor, and labor carries a one-year craftsmanship warranty.
If this is happening right now
What to do in the next five minutes, and what happens when you ring.
Before anybody arrives
- Photograph the gap. Stand back, shut the door as far as it will go, and photograph where it is catching — top corner, bottom corner or the latch side tells us most of it.
- Check whether the hinge screws are loose before anybody comes. A long screw into the stud fixes a surprising share of these and costs nothing.
- If it is a lock and you are locked out, that is a locksmith today rather than us — we replace and re-key locks, we do not open them.
Call the business line
(517) 505-7135Answered Monday to Friday, 08:00 to 18:00. There is no out-of-hours line and this page is not going to invent one — outside those hours, leave a message with the address and what is happening, and it is picked up in the morning.
On the call you get asked what is happening, what else in the building is affected, and whether it is still getting worse. That is how it gets decided whether this is our job at all — and if it is not, you get told that on the phone rather than after somebody has driven out.
- No trip charge
- No call-out fee or minimum
- No diagnostic fee
- No charge for a return visit
True across all 84 written quotes this company has issued. Most contractors in this market charge to turn up.
Or send the detailsWhen the right answer is not this company
- You can smell gas
- Leave the building and call the utility from outside. Not us, and not later.
- Water you cannot stop
- Your main shut-off first, then a licensed plumber. Every minute of this one costs money.
- Sewage backing up, or several fixtures at once
- A licensed plumber with a camera. That is the shared line, not a fixture, and a cable down one sink will not touch it.
- Sparking, scorching or a burning smell at an outlet or a panel
- Breaker off, and a licensed electrician. Electrical work here is repair and like-for-like replacement, and this is neither.
- No heat, or heating and cooling equipment that has failed
- A licensed mechanical contractor. That trade is not offered here at all, and knowing that in one phone call is worth more than a visit.
Where this is being asked for
One town has enough behind it for a page of its own.
This work is done everywhere on the coverage list. These are the towns where the enquiry record and the job record both have something specific to say, so they get a page that says it. The rest do not, because a page with nothing true on it is worse than no page.
Questions people actually ask
My door has dropped and catches on the frame. Is that a repair or a new door?
Usually a repair. Most dropped doors are hinge screws that have lost their grip in the frame, and the fix is a longer screw into the stud behind it and a re-hang. A new slab is only the answer when the door itself has swollen, delaminated or rotted at the bottom, and you get told which one it is before anything is ordered.
Can you re-key several locks to one key?
Yes, where the lock bodies allow it, and that is normally the cheapest way to sort out a house or a unit with four different keys. Where the existing hardware cannot be re-keyed it is replaced, and that is priced before it happens.
Book a door and hardware visit
Shut the door as far as it will go, stand back, and photograph where it is catching — top corner, bottom corner or the latch side answers most of it before anyone drives out. If you have several doors, say so: six in one visit is a very different price per door from one on its own, and that is where nearly all the saving on this work is. Coming out is free and there is no trip charge.