Why does my door swing open or closed on its own?

This is one of the few household annoyances with a genuinely simple physical explanation. A door hangs on two or three hinges that define a vertical axis. If that axis is not vertical, the door behaves like a gate on a slope and rolls to one end of its travel. Which end tells you which way the axis is leaning.

Step by step

1. Confirm which way it goes and how strongly.Open it to halfway and let go. A door that drifts slowly is slightly out; one that swings decisively is well out, or the frame has moved.
2. Check the hinge edge of the frame with a spirit level.Hold a long level against the hinge jamb. This is the axis the door rotates about. Out of plumb here is the cause in the great majority of cases.
3. Check the door itself is not the problem.A twisted leaf behaves similarly. Close it and look at the gap along the lock edge from top to bottom — a tapering gap suggests the leaf or the frame is out of square rather than simply out of plumb.
4. Try packing behind a hinge before anything else.A thin packer — card or a purpose-made shim — behind one hinge leaf tilts the door's axis slightly. Small changes make a noticeable difference, so start with very little and test.
5. Work out which hinge to pack by which way it swings.Packing behind the bottom hinge pushes the bottom of the door outwards and tips the axis one way; packing the top hinge tips it the other. Test rather than calculate — one attempt tells you if you have chosen right.
6. Re-check the door still latches and the gaps are even.Packing a hinge moves the whole leaf. A door that now stays put but will not close is no improvement. Adjust and re-test until both work.
7. Fit a door stop or a holder if the frame cannot be corrected.Where the frame has moved with the building, a floor or wall-mounted stop, a hook, or a simple wedge is a legitimate answer rather than an admission of defeat.
8. Leave fire doors alone.A fire door is meant to swing closed — that is the point of the self-closer. Do not defeat it, and do not wedge it open.

Tips

• Rising butt hinges deliberately close a door, so a door fitted with them is behaving as designed rather than faulty.
• If several doors in the house have started doing the same thing, that is worth noticing — it may be the building rather than the doors.

Common mistakes

• Wedging a fire door open. — It removes the protection the door exists to provide, and in a shared building it is likely to be a breach of the fire risk assessment.
• Bending a hinge to correct the swing. — It distorts the knuckle, wears the pin and usually reappears. Packing is reversible and does not damage anything.

Questions people ask