If your door is in need of some good old TLC we offer a full service which includes: re-alignment. re-sealing, servicing of movable parts, restoration of faded pvc and can even fill in any scratches or chips.

    What a full door service includes

    uPVC doors move with the seasons and their moving parts wear over time. A proper service keeps your door secure, weather-tight and easy to use, and it heads off bigger problems before they start.

    Based in Wishaw, we cover homes across Wishaw and Lanarkshire. For a quick, honest quote call 01698 604 278, message us on WhatsApp, or use our contact form. A photo of the problem is often all we need. And with over 30 years’ experience and a no-fuss guarantee on every job, you’re in safe hands: see our 100+ five-star reviews.

    Why bother servicing a door that still works?

    Fair question. The thing about a uPVC door is that it doesn’t pack in all at once, it drifts. It drops a millimetre or two on its hinges over the year, the seals harden off, the mechanism stiffens up, and before you know it you’re giving the door a lift or a shove to get the key to turn. Most folk just live with it until the morning it won’t lock at all, usually on the coldest day of the year. A service catches all of that while it’s still a two-minute adjustment. We go over the whole door, hinges, keeps, seals and the multipoint lock, get it sitting square in the frame again, and leave it opening and closing the way it did when it was new.

    A good time to get it booked in

    Before winter is the sweet spot. uPVC swells a touch in the heat and shrinks back when it turns cold, so a door that’s behaved itself all summer can start sticking or dropping the minute the frost arrives. If yours is getting stiff, letting a draught in, or you’re having to pull it towards you to turn the key, don’t sit on it. That’s the door telling you it wants a bit of attention, and it’s a lot cheaper to sort now than after it’s given up altogether. Give us a call and we’ll come and put it right.

    What a door service costs and how long it takes

    A single door is a short visit, usually under an hour, and it is quoted before we touch anything. If more than one door needs looking at, front, back and a patio slider say, doing them on the same visit brings the cost down considerably. There is no call out charge either way.

    What we actually adjust

    Hinge height and compression so the door sits square in the frame again, the keeps so every locking point meets its plate cleanly, the cylinder and the gearbox for smooth operation, and the gaskets and threshold seal for draughts and water. Every moving part gets the right lubricant, which is not the same as spraying it with whatever is under the sink.

    Why it is worth doing before it breaks

    Nearly every gearbox we replace was killed by months of being forced. The door dropped a few millimetres, the locking points stopped lining up, and every lift of the handle put strain through a part that was never designed for it. Catching that early is the difference between an adjustment and a new mechanism. Adjusting a dropped uPVC door explains what to look for.

    The order we work in, and why it matters

    A door service is a sequence rather than a checklist, because several of the adjustments interact. Doing them in the wrong order means the last one undoes the first.

    We start with the door shut, looking at the gap between slab and frame all the way round. That gap is the single most informative thing on a door. Even the whole way round means the door is hanging square. Wider at the top of the lock side means it has dropped away from the top hinge. Wider at the bottom means the opposite. Everything else follows from getting that right first.

    So the hinges come first. They get checked for wear and play, the fixings get checked into sound material, and the door gets brought back square. On a composite door this is where most of the work is, because the weight of the slab is what pulled it out of line in the first place.

    Only then do we look at the keeps, the slotted plates in the frame that the hooks drop into. With the door square, the keeps get set so each hook lands cleanly rather than clipping an edge. Doing keeps before hinges is the commonest shortcut in the trade and it is why some doors get serviced and are stiff again within the year.

    Then the compression, so the door pulls up firmly against the weather seal without needing a shove. Then the seals themselves, checked along their length and particularly at the corners. Then the drainage. Then the cylinder, the handle and the letterplate get checked and lubricated, and the whole thing gets operated properly from both sides before we call it done.

    Looking after it yourself in between

    Twice a year is enough and it makes a real difference to how long a mechanism lasts.

    Put a light oil or dry PTFE spray on the hinge pins and on the moving parts along the closing edge of the door, the hooks, rollers and the cam faces. A drop of graphite or a proper lock lubricant in the cylinder, never oil, because oil in a cylinder attracts dust and gums the pins.

    Wipe the weather seal rather than letting grit sit against it, and check the letterplate brush while you are there, because a perished one accounts for a surprising amount of a draughty hall.

    The one habit worth building is this: the day the door starts needing a lift or a lean before the key turns, deal with it. That is the moment it costs an adjustment. Six months later it is a gearbox. More doors are killed by being tolerated than by being used.

    More questions

    How often should a door be serviced?

    Every couple of years suits most doors. A front door on a busy family house, or a back door that gets used twenty times a day, is worth doing more often than that. Bi-folds and sliders benefit from more frequent attention again because they have far more moving parts.

    Is it worth it on an old door?

    Usually yes, and often more so, because an old door has had longer to drift out of adjustment. The frames and slabs outlast the hardware by years. The one case where we will say do not bother is a door whose mechanism pattern is discontinued and beyond sourcing, and we will tell you that plainly rather than service it and take the money.

    Will it stop the door sticking in summer?

    That is one of the better reasons to have it done. A door that binds in warm weather is nearly always a door that had almost no clearance to begin with, and restoring the clearance gives it somewhere to expand into. There is more in a uPVC door that will not lock in the heat.

    Can you do the windows at the same time?

    Yes, and most people who have us out for one end up having both done. Same visit, same travel. Our window service page covers what that involves.

    What if a part turns out to be needed?

    You get told before anything happens, with the price for the part and the work, and you decide. Nothing gets fitted and added to a bill without your say so. If you would rather leave it, we will service everything else and leave that item alone.

    Do you service patio, French and bi-fold doors?

    Yes, and they benefit from it more than anything else in the house. Tracks cleared, carriages and rollers checked and lubricated, alignment reset across the whole run. Our patio, French and sliding door repairs and bi-fold doors pages cover those.

    Two door reads worth knowing about: what to do when a window or door lock key is lost, and patio and French door repairs, which covers the sets that give most trouble.

    Where we cover

    Door servicing in Wishaw, Motherwell, Bellshill, Hamilton, Coatbridge and Airdrie, plus Glasgow, East Kilbride, Carluke, Lanark and Livingston.

    Questions we get asked about door servicing

    The door works fine. Why service it?

    Because doors fail slowly and you get used to it. Most people do not notice they have started shoving the handle until the day it stops working altogether, usually in the rain with the shopping in their arms.

    Will a service fix a draughty front door?

    In most cases yes, because the draught is coming from compression rather than from a hole. Adjusting the hinges and replacing tired gaskets pulls the door back against its seals. A draughty front door goes through the usual causes.

    Can you make my door more secure while you are here?

    Yes. Cylinder upgrades to a snap resistant standard are quick and inexpensive, and we can fit better keeps and hinge bolts where they are worth having. Is your uPVC door lock actually secure covers the checks.

    Do you service composite and aluminium doors too?

    Yes, and patio and French doors. The principles are the same even though the hardware differs. See composite door repairs and patio and French door repairs.

    If you want the wider picture on doors before you decide what the door needs, our doors in Wishaw page covers repairs, locks, panels and replacements together.

    Call 01698 604 278 or message us on WhatsApp to book a door service.