Doors and Windows - New Jambs/Old Doors

We gutted and re-rocked our two bedrooms this winter. Now, the door jambs are all out of whack. (Previously plaster walls) It was suggested to just rip out the existing jambs and replace with new wood. We want to keep our old doors, since they're solid wood and still in good shape.

How big of a project would this be? Replacing the wood isn't really an issue, but getting those hinge mortises in the right place seems like it might be a bit of a challenge.

My approach would be to put the door in place, shimmed and plumb, and mark the jambs, somehow.

Has anyone done this?

You can get jambs without hinge mortises. Set the new jambs as needed, then mark the hinge locations of the old doors by setting the door in the opening, down about 1/8 from the top and mark the hinges on the jamb. I assume the old doors were not trimmed over time to correct for sagging and settling???

You say the jambs are all out of whack. What exactly do you mean by out of whack? Are the reveals (gaps between the door and jamb) looking bad, meaning tapered or with big gaps? Are the jambs loose? Did they get beat up during the remodel?

The jambs can be replaced but they can also be taken out and re-hung. I did that very same thing in the house I live in now. I moved in a little over a year ago. The house was built in 1991. 3 or 4 of the interior doors were, IMO, "out of whack". The reveals looked tapered and bad. The doors jambs were no longer plumb or level. Could be it was just the house that settled. None-the-less, I removed the door and jamb as a unit (after removing the casing, of course) and then re-hung them. Now doors don't swing open or shut by themselves and the reveals are perfect.

You are in a good position to re-hang your doors/jambs now because there probably isn't any casing installed yet. There is a good technique to removing the existing jambs without damaging them. Just get a sawsall or any reciprocating saw with a 6" metal cutting blade. Put the blade between the jamb and rough framing and then cut the nails that hold the jamb to framing. Remove the jamb, remove any nails showing on the outside of the jamb (pull them out from the outside of the jamb), and then re-install. Make sure you use the exact same door and jamb that was originally installed together.

If the jambs are so bad you don't want to try and save them, you can always take your doors down to a door company and have them "pre-hung". (They will build a jamb package to fit your specific door). :) If you want to try and build the jambs yourself, get ready, because you will have a lot of work ahead of you. Mortising hinges, mortising for the striker plate, making a stop, etc,etc.

Good luck with your project.

I forgot to mention the house was built in 1897.

I don't know if the doors have been trimmed or not.

The reason the jambs are "out of whack" is because the wall thickness changed when we went from Plaster walls to sheetrock walls. Some are thicker than the walls on both the hinge side and/or the latch side. Some are thinner than the walls on one side or the other.

It seems like a rather large project for little gain to me, unless the jambs are in really bad shape. You can use a what is called a story pole to locate the hinges on each door then transfer them to the jamb. A story pole is a thin piece of wood about the height of the door. You hold the pole even with the top of the door then transfer the hinge locations to it. Then put the pole aginst the jamb and place a quarter on top between the pole and jamb head (to allow for space at top of door), now transfer the hinge locations to the jamb. If the doors have been trimmed to fit the openings, due to settlement, this project will be quite difficult.

Bill

The reason I want to do this, is for when the trim around the door goes back on...especially on the hinge side of the jambs. I can plane down the latch side of the jambs, no problem, but the hinge side needs to be relatively flush with the wall for everything to fit properly.

Talk about OJT!:cool: