I think one of my kids decided to hang from our storm door...now it isn't quite square and has a hard time shutting. It is basically an aluminum rectangle frame with long glass pane in the middle...a very common door, like this one: http://www.helpinaflash.com/images/Ideas/Storm-Door.jpg

I've tried taking it off the hinges and tightening the screws around the frame...but it didn't help. Anyone have any ideas for an easy repair?

 

Well, it depends. Some storm doors have about 4 or 5 hinge pins... and sometimes those hinges (usually the top 1 or 2) will get bent, causing the latch side of the door to hit as it closes. Best thing to do is to remove the door from the hinge, take a small block of wood, position it against the bent part of the hinge, and strike the piece of wood with a hammer. The idea is to bend the hinge pin back straight again. The wood is to prevent the paint on the door from getting marred, and to soften the blow. Sometimes you actually need to remove the hinge side z-bar from the door to do this, which means removing the storm door and z-bar together, then removing the z-bar from the door, so that you can get a good look at the hinge and see if it's actually bent or not. Pretty easy to tell by looking usually.

As a tip, removing the glass from those doors often makes them a lot easier to handle.

 

If it doesn't look like the hinges, then the door may have racked (out of square). Measure the storm door diagonally from the top L to the bottom R and then from the top R to the bottom L. If these measurements are not the same, the door is racked since one or more of the corner gussets have bent. You must remove the glass panel and the door and try to force it back into square.

 

i have a door similar to the link that rickai sent, but, the glass is etched and beveled, recently we had a wind storm come through and the wind caught the door and just beat it to bits, happened while we were at work. i would really like to save this piece of glass and reconstruct the outer frame, anybody ever try this?
i honestly don't know how the glass itself survived? the bottom 5" of the door was laying in the neighbors yard !

 

To reconstruct the door you would have to get the parts needed from the manufacturer of the door. That will be next to impossible even if you found the manufacturer. You will have to replace the door.