COMPOSITE DOOR repairs

Is your composite door becoming difficult to lock? Do your handles feel clunky when you lift them up? Is your door hitting the frame? These are very common problems with older doors or newer ones that have dropped and need adjusting. If left unchecked, they can lead to all sorts of problems and in the long run, cost more money to fix. We have a lot of experience in dealing with composite doors. From adjusting and aligning, unjamming, and opening, and repairing and replacing all parts. We carry most of the common parts on our vans so most jobs can be completed on the first visit. Any parts we don’t have, we can usually order in within 48 hours.

Common Problems with COMPOSITE DOORS

COMPOSITE DOOR WON’T SHUT

If your door won’t shut or you have to lift it or force it to shut, this usually means it has dropped or the door or frame has warped. This can be caused by the door being out of alignment, house movement or extreme weather. This is why you will sometimes find it better or worse at certain times of year.

With this issue we can adjust and realign your door, hinges and keeps to get it shutting again. Apart from the obvious security issues of not being able to shut your door, you can also cause bigger and more expensive problems by forcing it shut. It’s not uncommon to damage the handles, gearbox and/or full mechanism. Therefore, it’s always best to call a reputable composite door repair company early so we can realign everything before something breaks.

COMPOSITE DOOR WON’T LOCK

If your composite door won’t lock or you have to lift the door or handles to get it to lock this usually means the door or keeps are out of alignment, or your cylinder, gearbox or mechanism is faulty. In most cases, the initial problem is the door or keeps are out of alignment and the homeowner will keep forcing the handles and lock. Over time the issue gets worse until the gearbox or mechanism breaks, and the homeowner will then call a locksmith. It’s always best to call a locksmith early to avoid the higher cost of replacing a gearbox, mechanism, or handles.

With these issues, we can adjust and realign your door where no other damage has been caused and if need be, we can replace your gearbox or mechanism. If we replace any parts, we will always check alignment and readjust if necessary, so you don’t have the same problem happening again.

HANDLES ARE FLOPPY OR WONT LIFT TO LOCK

If your composite door handles are floppy this usually means the spindle, spring cartridges or gearbox is faulty. We carry replacement spindles, cartridges and handles on the van and a variety of gearboxes so we can complete most jobs on the first visit.

If your composite door handles won’t lift to lock or you have to force them to lift it this could mean your door or keeps need realigning or your gearbox is faulty.

If you catch it early then realigning your door or keeps will do the trick but if you have left it and the gearbox is faulty, then it will need replacing and the doors and keeps realigning after, so it doesn’t happen again. So, if you have composite door handle problems, get in touch today.

COMPOSITE DOOR IS JAMMED SHUT

When a composite door is jammed shut this means the gearbox and/or rest of the mechanism has failed and has jammed in the locked position. It is very important that you do not try to unjam it yourself as you could cause a lot of unnecessary damage. We have specialist tools made for this exact issue so we can unjam the door without any unwanted damage. In cases where the gearbox is faulty, we can replace just the gearbox but in cases where the whole mechanism has failed, or it is a very old part I can replace the whole mechanism.

KEY IS STUCK IN LOCK/KEY IS HARD TO TURN/KEY IS SPINNING

If you have one of these issues, it is usually a faulty cylinder or gearbox. If it is a faulty lock, then it is much cheaper to replace than a faulty gearbox so it’s important the lock is removed correctly otherwise you can do unnecessary damage to the gearbox. We have specialist tools for key extraction so we can safely remove the broken part of the key without causing any unnecessary damage to the door or working parts.

COMPOSITE DOOR GEARBOX PROBLEMS

If your door is failing to lock, handles are stiff/floppy or the multi locking points are not moving/locking then you could have an issue with your composite door gearbox.

A failed gearbox is one of the most common jobs we get called to, and one we can usually remedy quite quickly by replacing the gearbox and diagnosing and remedying the issues that caused it to fail in the first place.

We carry the most common (and some not so common) composite door gearboxes on the van so if you need your gearbox replaced, we can do it in most cases on the first visit.

COMPOSITE DOOR LOCKING MECHANISM PROBLEMS

A failed composite mechanism is less common than a failed gearbox but it does still happen. Usually, the gearbox fails and as people tend to leave things and let the issues get worse, the rest of the mechanism starts to fail resulting in either the multi locking points failing or the door getting jammed shut.

Another reason for a full strip replacement can be when your gearbox fails but they no longer make a replacement gearbox for your door, so even if it’s just the gearbox that has failed, you would need to replace the whole strip to get your door working again. Even with the additional cost of replacing the whole mechanism, it’s always much cheaper than replacing the whole door.

COMPOSITE DOOR HINGE PROBLEMS

If your composite door is tilting to one side or your door has dropped, you could have an issue with your hinges. You can usually tell when it is the hinges because the hinge will either not be level or in some cases it will have started to crack or fall apart.

The causes vary, but in most cases it is due to an alignment issue with the door that has either been left, or someone unqualified has tried to realign the door, usually by maxing out the hinge height feature. Over time, the hinge just starts to deteriorate.
We can source all types of composite door hinges and can re hang your door if need be.