Door Frame & Jamb Repair in Lake County, IL

Frame repair quotes vary more than almost any other door work, because repair and replacement are two completely different jobs. These questions tell you which one you are actually being quoted.

Repair or replace? Ask which one the price covers and why. A jamb split in one place is a repair. A jamb split in three, or one that has moved out of plumb with the house, is a replacement. Both are legitimate answers, so you want the reasoning.

What goes behind the strike? A repair that relies on the jamb alone will fail the next time. The screws need to reach the framing behind it, and a full-length reinforcement plate is what keeps it there.

Is the casing included? Pulling a jamb almost always means the casing comes off, and old casing does not always survive it. Ask whether new casing and matching are in the price or added later.

Paint. Most frame repairs need filling and painting to disappear. Ask whether that is your job or theirs, because it is a common gap between two prices.

Does the door still fit? A rebuilt frame changes the opening slightly. The door has to be rehung and adjusted to it, not just screwed back on.

Carpentry has its own vocabulary and most of it is never explained to the person paying for the work. Here is what the terms on your estimate actually mean.

Cope. An inside corner cut where one piece is scribed to the profile of the other rather than both being cut at 45 degrees. Coped joints stay closed as a house moves through the seasons. Mitred inside corners open up. It is the single clearest tell of finish carpentry versus trim installation.

Scribe. Cutting a piece to follow the actual shape of a wall, floor or ceiling instead of assuming it is straight. Nothing in a house is straight, and scribing is what makes work sit tight against reality.

Reveal. The small deliberate setback where casing meets a door jamb, usually about a quarter inch. It gives the eye a line and hides the fact that the jamb edge is never perfectly flush. Zero reveal looks like a mistake.

Spring angle. The angle at which crown molding sits between wall and ceiling. It determines every cut on the run, and it changes on a vaulted or angled ceiling — which is why those get set off the actual ceiling rather than a chart.

Built-up. A profile assembled from several stock pieces to make a larger or more complex shape than any single piece offers. It is how original profiles in older houses get matched when the exact moulding is no longer made.

Shim. A thin tapered wedge used to bring something to plumb or level in an opening that is neither. Every door hung in an older house depends on them.

Blocking. Extra framing added inside a wall so something can be anchored to it later — a grab bar, a floating shelf, a heavy mirror, a wall-hung vanity. Cheap while the wall is open, expensive afterwards.

Plumb, level, square. Vertical, horizontal, and at right angles. Three separate things, and in an older house you often cannot have all three at once. Deciding which one to hold is a judgement call.

Face frame. The flat frame on the front of a cabinet carcase that the doors mount to. Frameless cabinets do without it, which is a different look and a different install.

Filler and scribe moulding. The narrow pieces that close the gap between a cabinet run and a wall that is not straight. They are what makes an installation look built in rather than pushed into place.

Jamb. The frame a door sits in. On exterior doors it is usually where the rot is, and replacing the slab without the jamb often solves nothing.

Stringer, tread, riser. The angled board carrying a staircase, the part you step on, and the vertical face between steps. Squeaks come from those three moving against each other.