Hung a new door slab and found out my house is way more crooked than I thought

I replaced an old hollow core door in my 1970s Edmonton bungalow last weekend with a solid slab from Home Depot. Got it all squared up with shims, screws tight, and the gap looked perfect. Then I shut it and the top corner hit the jamb like a brick wall. Turns out my floor is out of level by almost 3/8 of an inch across the opening. I had to plane down the door edge about 1/4 inch and rehang it with longer screws to pull the jamb straight. Learned that you can't trust anything to be square in these old houses. Anyone else dealt with a surprise like this when swapping out doors?

2 comments

2 Comments

miamitchell1mo ago

Have you considered that maybe the jamb was already pulled out of whack from the old door being hung wrong for years? Sometimes when you put a new one in you're just revealing the existing problem instead of creating one... The floor being off 3/8 doesn't mean your whole house is crooked, it just means someone didn't level the subfloor when they built it.

johnson.daniel1mo ago

Yeah, that's usually how it goes.