In today's video, I will teach you guys how to fix a door that doesn't latch. I will show
you one simple way to fix it in no time. And also stick ‘til the end of this video because
I'm also sharing my professional tip, how you can get the door even more secure at the
same time. Stay tuned.
Okay, fixing a door that won't latch.
Now as part of being a locksmith. This is something that I do as part of my work, something that
I do regularly and I will show you guys in this video how to do it the same way and how
to fix it in less than two minutes. Now to pull this off, what you will need is a couple
tools. The first is going to be a power drill. Now, most of you guys have a par drill in
the house, but if you don't, I'm also share a link down below in the description of this
video where you can purchase one. Okay, the second thing is going to be a carbide
burr. Now the carbide burr basically it's a small, very little tool that will connect
to your power drill and will allow you to do the adjustment for the strike plate. It
will help you to shave the actual metal strike plate and do the adjustment that's needed.
So make sure to click down below in the description and buy one. Okay, the other most important
things to have and wear before you start is going to be a safety glasses. So please guys,
please wear safety glasses before you start. That's all I'm asking and if you don't have
one, I'm also sharing a link down below in the description where you can purchase one.
Now let's move on from the boring stuff to the fun stuff and I will show you how to fix
this problem in less than two minutes. All right, let's go. Okay guys, before we going
to start, I just want you to check something very important. The actual gap from the bottom
of the door all the way to the top. Now this gap is very important that it's going to be
even all the way from the bottom to the top. Now the same thing, you want to check on the
other side of the door, which is the actual door hinges side. So you want to see that
the gap is even all the way. Let's check it from close up and see how it is in this door.
Okay, so let's see what's going on with this door and the gap that I was talking about
and we going all the way up and yes, it becomes very narrow on the top and it's not even.
Let's check the other side of the door where the door hinges are.
Okay, so the door hinges side, it's more narrow on the bottom and wider at the top. So yeah,
we definitely have miss alignment here with the door and let's see what we will have to
do. Okay, so just by looking at the door hinges, what I see is basically that some of the screws
are actually loosen. So that might be the issue with the misalignment of the door gap.
So what you will have to do is to tighten those screws and just see if that is causing
the problem and might not even need to do the next step. But what I like to do when
it comes to reinforcement, and that's one of my tips as well, is to use a longer screw
when it's come to reinforcement. Instead of using the small short screws that basically
attach to this door hinges, and also the door strike, is use a longer screw. So, you can
use, 2, 2½ or even 3-inch screws and reinforce the door that way. That will give you more
security in general and it will keep the door in place for a longer time.
Okay, so let's move on and put the longer screws and see how the door gap works for
us. What you will need is to remove the short screw. See how short it is? And that's probably
the reason why they become loose because they're very short. So, what you will have to do is
to prepare the hole, and you're going to have to drill with 1/8 drill bit to prepare the
installation for the longer screw. And then you're going to install it just like this.
Now you can repeat the step and do it for the top one as well. And if you have any other
hinges with the same problem, repeat the steps. Okay, let's move on and see if that's actual
fixing our latching problem. For the second time let's see how the gap looks like. And
as you can see, it doesn't become narrow so much at the top. It's still a little bit,
that's why I said it's not 100% but to fix the problem with the door latching, it did
fix it. Now if it's not fixing your door latching issue, now I'm going to show you how to use
the carbide burr and show you how to fix this door strike plate problem with now time.
The last thing that you will have to do before we're gonna start using our carbide burr tool
and fixing your door latching problem is checking and, locate where the latch is compared to
the actual door strike plate. So, you will have to close the door and just
by looking at the actual gap, you can see where the latch starts. So, what you can do
is you can use a marker, erasable marker, and just mark a small line to see where it
starts. And basically, most of the time the problem is that the latch is too low compare
to the actual door strike and that's causing the door not to latch correctly. So just mark
a small line and it will give you an idea where it's located and also that will make
the process of using the carbide burr tool easier, cause you can see how much you will
need to shave the metal strike. Okay, let's move on to the next step, using
our carbide burr tool and see how that's actually working. Here's our carbide burr tool and
we are gonna use it right now and follow this line here that we did previously and that
will give you a little bit of direction, how much you will need to shave so the door strike
will work just fine and aligned with the actual door latch. So before that, remember, safety
glasses. Guys, don't forget safety glasses. Link down below if you don't have one.
Okay, let's move on to our next step. Okay, we are ready to go. So basically, we are going
to start right here. What we want to do is we want to make sure that we go along this
line and you don't really have to go further down. I mean, you can go down if you want
to until the actual screw, but just go as far as you can, test the door every time and
see if it latches. I'm going to try cosmetically to make it look even and straight, but you
don't really have to, it's just an option. Okay, let's test right now our door and see
if that fix our problem. Okay, the very last thing is going to be checking and testing
the door. Let's see if we fixed the problem. Walla! Things are working the way we wanted.
The door latch and that's it guys. Now remember I mentioned in the beginning
of the video about my professional tip, how you can get the door more secure at the same
time. So, remember we reinforced the hinges with 3-inch screws and this is exactly the
tip. You need to use 3-inch screws on the door hinges and also on the door strike. So,
what you will have to do is to use 1/8 drill bit, prepare the installation for longer screws
on the strike and install those screws guys. This is how you can get the door more reinforced
because the longer screw will actually attach to the door stud and that in general will
increase the security if someone tried to break in. That's it guys, you're officially
a door expert. Now you can repeat those steps for any door in the house, interior or exterior
door and you are on your way. Okay guys, thank you so much for watching.
I hope that the tip that I share today did help you to fix your door latching problem
and also do a small reinforcement. If it did work for you and even if it didn't, I really,
really want to know about it. So just write a comment down below in the description of
the video and let me know your experience. And also, if you have any questions, I will
be more than happy to answer it, so just write a comment down below in the description.
And don't forget, thumbs up to my video, share, subscribe to my channel of course if you're
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this out as well. And I will see you in my next one. Thank you so much.