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Cleveland, Alabama · Blount County

French Door Repair in Cleveland, AL

French doors are two heavy doors meeting in the middle with nothing but hardware holding the alignment. When one leaf drops even slightly, the pair stops meeting cleanly and everything downstream stops working: the latch, the...

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French Door Repair diagram
French Door Repair — Cleveland, Alabama

Our territory takes in Cleveland and the communities around it in Blount County, so calls from the AL-79 corridor, Main Street and out by the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior all get the same response.

Door problems in Cleveland tend to sort into two groups: older homes where the frames and jambs have taken decades of weather, and newer builds where the hardware was the cheapest part of the package and has already given up.

Tell us what the door is doing and we will tell you what it needs.No guesswork over the phone, no pressure.

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The french door repair problems we see most in Cleveland

These are the french door repair faults we are called out to most often in Cleveland. If you recognise one, the underlying cause is usually the second half of the line.

  • The flush bolts on the inactive leaf need forcingMisaligned keepers, or corrosion in the bolt housings.
  • Cold air pouring in down the middleFailed astragal weatherstrip on the joint between the leaves.
  • You can see the meeting stiles are no longer parallelOne leaf has racked, which no amount of adjustment at the lock will correct.
  • The handle set turns but nothing engagesBroken multipoint gearbox or a failed drive.
  • The multipoint lock will not throwThe door is not sitting in the frame correctly, so the lock points do not line up with their keepers.
  • The multipoint locks at the top but not the bottomThe active leaf has dropped, so the lower keeper is now below the shootbolt.

Get a real diagnosis, not a sales pitch.We fix doors for a living.

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What we see on french door repair around Blount County

Up on the plateau the thermometer reads several degrees colder than the valley, and it stays below freezing longer. Ice storms are a real planning item here, not a novelty.

Freezing weather makes the astragal weatherstrip between the two leaves brittle, and once that seal cracks the middle joint of a French door becomes the draftiest part of the house.

Storm wind on a pair of French doors loads the meeting stile and the flush bolts, and if the inactive leaf is not solidly bolted top and bottom, the wind will find that out for you.

We see the pattern often enough across Blount County that we usually know what we are looking at before we arrive.

Local factors we account for in Cleveland: winter freezes and storm wind — typical of the Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain plateau.

Most doors we see are repairable.Call and find out before you price a replacement.

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What a french door repair call covers

  • Threshold and sill workNew adjustable thresholds and sill seals under a pair of doors.
  • Hinge repair and re-hangingCorrecting sag with proper fasteners into framing and re-hanging leaves plumb.
  • Handle and lockset replacementMatched handle sets and cylinders for French door pairs.
  • Flush bolt repairHead and sill flush bolts on the inactive leaf repaired or replaced.
  • Security upgradesReinforced strikes, longer fasteners and better flush bolts on exterior pairs.
  • Astragal and weatherstrip replacementNew seals on the meeting stile so the middle joint actually closes.
  • Multipoint lock repairRepairing and replacing multipoint gearboxes, drive rods and keepers.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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How we approach french door repair

  1. Look at the pair as one assemblyFrench doors fail as a pair. Adjusting one leaf without reference to the other just moves the problem across.
  2. Check each leaf on its ownWith the inactive leaf bolted, we test the active one, then reverse it. Faults that look shared usually are not.
  3. Correct the hinges firstA dropped leaf makes every lock and seal fault worse. Hinges and fixings get sorted before the multipoint is touched. On the mountain we check weatherstrip condition carefully, because repeated hard freezes make it brittle long before it looks worn.
  4. Rebuild the seal at the meeting stileAstragal weatherstrip is the hardest working seal on the door and it is usually the one that has been ignored.
  5. Set the locking hardwareKeepers adjusted so the shootbolts engage top and bottom with the handle lifting smoothly and no forcing.
  6. Cycle both leaves fullyOpen, close and lock each leaf several times, including the flush bolts, before we call it finished.

Need it looked at soon?Call and we will tell you honestly when we can get there.

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What affects the cost of french door repair in Cleveland

Every french door repair call in Blount County is a little different, and the cost follows what the door actually needs:

  • interior versus exterior pairs, since exterior work includes weatherproofing
  • multipoint lock repair versus full gearbox replacement
  • whether one leaf or both need re-hanging
  • astragal, weatherstrip and threshold replacement
  • whether the frame itself has moved and needs correcting

Call and describe what the door is doing. In most cases we can tell you over the phone which of those applies to you before anyone drives out to Cleveland.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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Areas we cover for french door repair in Cleveland

Our Cleveland service area includes the AL-79 corridor and Main Street and the surrounding Blount County communities, out around the Locust Fork of the Black Warrior and Palisades Park nearby.

Service area: Cleveland, Blount County, Alabama — and the surrounding communities.

We also cover the nearby Blount County and the Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain plateau communities listed further down this page.

One call gets you an answer.We will tell you what is wrong and what it takes to fix.

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French door repair in Cleveland: questions we get asked

Are French doors less secure than a single door?

They can be, because there are two leaves and a joint in the middle. Reinforced strikes, solid flush bolts and long fasteners into the framing make a big difference and are inexpensive.

Can sagging French doors be fixed without replacing them?

Yes, and it is the usual outcome. The fix is proper hinge repair with fasteners reaching the structural framing, plus re-hanging the leaf plumb. Replacing a pair of French doors is a large job by comparison.

Can one lite of glass be replaced or does the whole door need doing?

Individual lites can normally be replaced on their own. That is one of the advantages of a true divided or simulated divided light door.

My French doors bind in summer but are fine in winter. Is that normal?

Some seasonal movement is normal in Cleveland, but if it is bad enough to stop the door closing, there is usually an underlying alignment problem that the seasonal movement is pushing over the edge.

Why will my multipoint lock not throw anymore?

The door has moved, so the lock points no longer line up with their keepers in the frame. Forcing the handle in that state is how the gearbox breaks, so it is worth correcting the alignment before something expensive fails.

My French doors rub in the middle. Is that because the wood swelled?

Usually not. Nine times out of ten it is hinge sag on one leaf, and the giveaway is that the rub is worse at one end of the joint than the other. Real swelling affects the whole edge evenly and comes and goes with the season.

Not sure whether it is a repair or a replacement?Describe the symptoms and we will give you a straight answer.

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Other door repair services in Cleveland


French Door Repair near Cleveland

We cover the surrounding Blount County and the Sand Mountain and Lookout Mountain plateau communities as well:

All door repair services in Cleveland  ·  French Door Repair across Alabama  ·  All Alabama service areas

Get a real diagnosis, not a sales pitch.We fix doors for a living.

Click to Call (205) 619-2895
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