Residential & Commercial Security - Locks, Keys & Dead Bolts - It's too cold for the door to lock

Hi everyone,

It's currently -30 degrees Celsius outside. When it gets this cold I often have a difficult time locking my front and back doors from the outside. I can lock them from the inside by leaning against the door but when I'm outside I can't get the lock to fully turn so that it locks. When you open the door and try the key it lock mechanism turns without a problem. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

apparantly the cold is causing the outer surface of the door to warp probably from contraction, short of finding a material that is not affected by the cold you might need to install some type of handle on the door to allow you to pull on the door to pull it back into shape simular to you leaning on it from the inside.

life begins when the kids leave home and the dog dies.

The cardinal problem with construction of doors and frames by carpenters (usually), is that they install the hinges using 1" screws.

If you replace these screws with 3" screws, often you will attach the hinge to the stud behind the frame.

This will usually fix a dropping door and likely prevent it from dropping in the future.

This will often allow the lock mechanisms to operate correctly.

I can tell you the quantity of jobs I am called to because the latch or bolt wont work because the door has dropped. Easy money for 15 minutes work and cost of just a couple of 3" screws.

Look very closely at the strike plate--- you should be able to determine where the most wear occurs. If you have to push on the door from the inside to throw the bolt, you will probably see the wear along the side of the strike plate opposite the door stop. Assuming you have a wooden door frame, remove the strike plate, and re-install it about 1/8" further from the stop, making sure to widen the hole in the wood, as well. Also, look at the gap between the door and frame along the hinge edge---if it appears significantly more at the top than at the bottom, the door is sagging; as advised by GlobalLocky, longer hinge screws will help this condition. Since the top hinge is the usual culprit, replace the (2) screws closest to the hinge pin on both the door and frame side, then just make sure the rest of the screws are snug on the other hinges.
Do you also have a door knob latch? The latch strike should be positioned to hold the door snug against the stop, while the deadbolt should have play, to allow for free operation.