How do I service a uPVC or composite door once a year?
The half-hour routine that stops a gearbox failing, a seal perishing and a hinge seizing — and the two things people do to their doors every year that shorten their life.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 30 min
- Read
- 3 min
Short answer
Clean the seals and the frame rebate, lubricate every moving bolt and the hinges with a light machine oil or silicone, put a PTFE or graphite lubricant in the cylinder only, check the handle lifts with light pressure, and tighten the handle and hinge fixings. Half an hour a door, once a year, in autumn.
The gearbox in a multipoint door is the most expensive part of it and the one most people replace, and it almost always fails because it has been asked to do work it was never designed for: dragging a heavy door onto over-compressed seals, through a dry mechanism, with a bolt bearing on a keep. Every one of those is prevented by half an hour a year.
What you'll need
- Light machine oil or a silicone spray
- A PTFE or graphite lock lubricant
- Silicone-based rubber conditioner or a little petroleum-free rubber care product (optional)
- Hex keys and a Pozidriv screwdriver
- Warm soapy water and a cloth
Step by step
- Do it in autumn.Before the wet and cold, and after the summer heat has finished moving a composite door about. A door adjusted in October is set for the season when it matters.
- Wash the frame rebate and the seals.Warm soapy water and a cloth, right into the corners of the rebate where the seal sits. Grit in the rebate abrades the seal, and a compressed seal full of dust does not spring back.
- Condition the seals.Wipe them with a silicone-based rubber conditioner or a suitable rubber care product. Do not use oil-based products, which swell and soften EPDM gaskets.
- Clean and lubricate the bolts and the faceplate.Throw the bolts with the door open. Wipe the hooks, rollers and deadbolt clean, then apply a light machine oil or a silicone spray to each and to the slots they run in. Work the handle several times to spread it.
- Lubricate the gearbox slot.A little oil into the slot in the faceplate where the drive rods run. There is no need to take anything apart; the mechanism draws lubricant in as it operates.
- Treat the cylinder differently.A PTFE-based lock lubricant or powdered graphite, and nothing else. Oil and general-purpose water-displacing sprays attract dust in a pin cylinder and make it worse within a season.
- Lubricate the hinges.A drop of light oil at the top of each hinge barrel, then work the door back and forth. On flag hinges there is often a small hole or the top of the pin to aim at.
- Check the handle effort.Lift the handle. It should take firm but comfortable pressure. If it needs a heave, the door is over-compressed or misaligned and the gearbox is being loaded every single time. Adjust before the winter.
- Check the fixings.Handle through-bolts, faceplate screws, hinge screws and keep screws. Snug, not hard. A loose keep migrates and a loose handle wears its spindle.
- Clear the drainage.Look along the bottom of the outer frame for drainage slots and clear them with a thin sliver of plastic — never a screwdriver, which distorts them. A frame that holds water rots the threshold and lifts a composite skin.
- Check the threshold and the bottom seal.The bottom of the door is the wettest part of it. Make sure the sweep seal or brush is intact, and that water leaving the threshold is going outwards and not into the floor.
- Write the date somewhere.Inside a cupboard door, on a phone reminder, in the household file. The value of this routine is entirely in it actually happening every year.
Common mistakes
- Spraying a general-purpose water-displacing aerosol into everything — It is the wrong product for a cylinder and a poor long-term lubricant for a mechanism. It flushes out what was there, works well for a fortnight, and leaves a dust-attracting film.
- Winding the keeps tighter every year to cure a draught — Compression is a fine setting, not a way to compensate for a perished seal or a dropped door. Ratcheting it up year on year is how gearboxes are destroyed.
- Cleaning uPVC with an abrasive or a solvent — It removes the surface finish permanently, and a scratched frame then holds dirt and yellows faster.
Keeping on top of it
- Full service — clean, lubricate, check effort and fixings (Annually, in autumn)
- Wash the frame and seals (Twice a year)
- Clear the frame drainage slots (Twice a year, and after leaf fall)
- Check the handle lifts with light pressure (Whenever it feels different)
- Check the cylinder standard and consider an upgrade (Once, and whenever the cylinder is changed)