Front door misaligned, what to do??

I installed a glass storm door, works great. But the regular front house door (in the same frame with the front door) now drags. The rubber dam now hits too low and it drags. How can I realign this door to level off and keep it from dragging?? I think it was caused by the extra weight put in within the frame by the storm glass door. Sorry if using wrong terminology or if the post is confusing, I'm not a handy man.... or at least that's what my wife says....

 

My guess would be that it was a prehung door, and no one ever replaced some of the hinge screws with longer screws. The number of screws and location seems to vary depending on who you ask. I prefer to replace most or all of the screws in the top hinge with screws that reach into the framing 3" to 3 1/2" normally for me. Then I replace a screw in each of the lower hinges.

 

If it is dragging on the leading edge, the hinge screws are pulling loose, and should be replaced with 3" ones. If it is dragging across the entire base, you may be able to adjust the threshold. Look to see if there are 4 or 5 phillips screw heads in the wooden insert. If so, you can crank these until the insert moves down. But my bet it on the hinge screws.

 

I agree that if the door is dragging on bottom (esp on the latch side) that it probably didn't get the long screws (esp on the top hinge). You'd want to install a long screw in the top hinge and tighten it down good. Sometimes if you put screws in ALL the hinges, it won't pull the door up, it will just move the door to one side and increase the gap all along the latch side jamb. So I'd suggest you start with a long screw in the top hinge and see if it helps.

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/thexsleeper/detail?.dir=4b29&.dnm=d26cre2.jpg

Checking to see if the door has an adjustable threshold is also a great idea. But if the door has sagged, you'll notice that the gap across the top of the door is not consistantly straight- if the door has sagged, it will have a larger gap on top of the door above the knob. And if the door has sagged and you look down the latch side of the door, the gap at the top is usually smaller than the gap on the bottom. Putting in that long screw in the top hinge will correct all that. You'd want to tighten it until those reveals all look straight again. (assuming they were straight to begin with, of course!)

 

You can also make small adjustments (if the previous advice does not work) by placing a small shim behind the hinges.

To raise a sagging door, first remove all the screws from lowest hinge on the jamb side (not the door side). Find some thin plastic (like the clear packaging that batteries come in from the store) and cut two small pieces about the size of the door latch. Sandwich the plastic between the wood jamb and the hinge and reinsert the screws. This 32nd of an inch adjustment will actually move the top forward most part of the door quite a bit and compensate for the drag.

This works well in situations where the door was actually installed correctly in the first place and has settled with the house. That being, installed using shims to level/plumb and nailed through the shims. In this case, all the screwing in the world will not budge anything. Beats the heck out of getting out the old hand planer. You can also create other issues if you overscrew a jamb that does not have any shims at all.

 

Thanks for the replies, I do have regular standard hinges so I will attempt the long screws option first and if that fails, then try the shim technique.

Thanks again.....