Hi, Let's get the bad stuff out of my system right away #$%^&@#! OK. I recently repainted much of the interior of the house. Time consuming, but generally it went fine. I decided to replace the 40 year old scruffy looking door hinges. The interior ones went super. About 15 minutes per door. Then I tackled the front door. Not good. The door is metal (over a wood frame). Two screws would not come out. They were naturally the bottom most ones. I ended up taking the hinges out of the door frame and putting the door on its side. No easy task as it was around 100 pounds and rather awkward to manipulate inside the house.
I had to drill out the two screws. BTW the hinges on the door slip under the metal and are not on top of it. It meant I two fewer screws in the lowest hinge...but really not a big deal. Then I tried to insert the new hinges. Door hinges have been standardized in size for about 40-50 years so I figured it would be a simple task. Nope.
The new hinges holes did not line up with the holes in the door. Bummer. I also discovered that the original hinges had been disassembled and flipped over to fit the door. So out come the hinge pins and flip them. Still only 2 of the 4 holes were even close. Obviously the builders got funky doors back then that were not standard. OK, now it was time to get the door back in the frame. Right! The locations of the cutouts on the frame no longer matched the parts on the door.
OK. Take out the middle hinge and try to get at least the top hinge connected. No way. So I reassembled the hinges and used a batch of wooden wedges to raise the door (remember it is 100 pounds and awkward) to meet the top hinge cut out on the frame. Stick in a screw and try to get the bottom one in place. Oops, the frame splits and the top one comes loose.
Redo the top with longer screw (only one so the door can swing a bit freely to line up the bottom one). Great. Managed to get the bottom one in place and secured. Now the middle hinge won't line up right. Had to enlarge the cut out for it. Finally manage to get all three hinges attached and secured.
I hoped the door would close and open properly. Well almost.....needed to add a new gasket on one side. So the Bill of Materials was: Three hinges at $4 each, two broken high strength drill bits $7, one bandaid
for my forehead that was hit by a piece of one drill bit that fractured $.25, and about 3 hours of time. So much for routine home repairs...I think I'll stick to electronic DIY.
Good listening
Bruce
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