How do I stop a door rattling in the wind?

Rattling gets treated as a draught problem because both involve air moving past a door, and the usual foam-strip answer works partially and comes unstuck. The actual cause is mechanical and it is fixable properly in an hour.

Safety

Step by step

1. Work out whether it is the latch or the hinges.Push the closed door gently. If it moves in and out against the stop, the latch is loose in the keep, which is the usual case. If it moves up and down or side to side, the hinges are worn or loose.
2. Understand the mechanism.The latch bolt sits in the keep with a little clearance. Wind pressure moves the door across that clearance until it hits, then back. Removing the clearance removes the rattle, and nothing else does it properly.
3. Move the keep forward.Unscrew it, fill the old holes with matchsticks and glue or a filler, and refit it one or two millimetres closer to the door stop. It is the correct fix and it costs nothing.
4. Or fit an adjustable keep.Roller catches and adjustable strike plates let you tune the tightness with a screwdriver. Worth buying if the door is likely to move again seasonally.
5. Bend the tongue of a metal keep slightly.Many pressed keeps have a lip that can be tweaked inwards with pliers to take up the play. Quick, free and effective, and reversible if overdone.
6. Check the hinge screws.Loose hinges let the whole door move. Tighten them, and where a screw spins in a stripped hole, use matchsticks and glue or a longer screw into the frame.
7. Add a stop strip if the frame has none.Some older frames have a rebate rather than a planted stop, and a door in a worn rebate rattles. A thin planted stop bead pinned to the frame closes it up.
8. Use compression seal, not foam, for the remaining gap.A P-strip or E-strip in the rebate compresses when the door closes and cushions it. Cheap foam tape crushes flat, comes unstuck and lasts a season.
9. Deal with the pressure difference as well.A door rattling only when a window is open, or when the extractor runs, is being pushed by airflow through the house. Adjusting the keep still fixes it, but the pattern explains when it happens.
10. Check the door has not shrunk.Timber doors shrink in a dry heated winter, which opens the gaps. If the rattle is seasonal, an adjustable keep is a better answer than a fixed one.
11. Do not over-tighten it.A door that needs shoving to close will be slammed instead, which loosens hinges and eventually splits the frame. Just enough to remove the play.
12. Leave escape routes usable.A final exit door must still open quickly and easily. Never pack or seal one to the point that it needs force.

Tips

• Push the closed door with a finger. In-and-out movement is the latch and keep; up-and-down is the hinges. That two-second test decides everything else.
• An adjustable keep is worth the small cost on any door that rattles seasonally, because timber doors move with humidity.
• Compression seal in the rebate, not foam tape on the stop. Foam crushes flat within a season and comes unstuck.

Common mistakes

• Treating a rattle as a draught problem — Foam draught strip masks it briefly, crushes flat and comes unstuck. The cause is play between the latch and the keep, which is a mechanical adjustment.
• Tightening it until the door needs shoving — The door then gets slammed, which loosens hinges and splits the frame over time. Remove the play, no more.

If it doesn't work

Questions people ask