Guidelines for Hanging a New Interior Door | Door Fitting

We always recommend that doors be installed by a competent tradesperson who has the necessary installation tools. Doors, particularly fire doors, can be heavy and must be handled with care; seek assistance if necessary.

Our simple 7-step guide explains everything you need to know to install your XL Joinery interior door. Always read the instructions that came with your new door to avoid voiding your warranty.

How long does it take to install an internal door?

If you have to first remove your old door, fitting a new internal door should take about 2 hours, depending on your level of DIY skill and tools.

1. Beginning the Installation of Your Door

Before you begin, you must carefully unscrew the hinges on the existing door. Before removing the final screws, make sure you're supporting the weight of the door.

If the new door is glazed, leave any protective paint or peel on the glass until the painting or staining is finished.

2. Interior Door Installation Measuring

Allow approximately 3mm clearance between the door and the surrounding door lining when measuring the door frame to fit your new door. The clearance between the bottom edge of the door and the floor is determined by your floor covering and whether or not threshold strips are installed. We previously published a guide to measuring your doors, which can be found here.

3. Customizing Your Door

Even though our doors are manufactured to the nearest inch, there will always be instances where you will need to trim your doors to fit. For example, in older homes, doorways may have shifted over time, resulting in one side being slightly lower than the other. We always recommend that you use a qualified joiner to perfectly fit your doors at XL Joinery. Alternatively, if your house is unusually shaped, XL Joinery provides a made-to-measure service to ensure you get the exact fit you require.

When you order your new doors, you should have a good idea of the size of the door frame. To trim your door, take exact measurements and subtract 3mm for clearance.

Once you've marked out where the door needs to be trimmed, make sure you have a suitable workbench or workspace to place it on. To avoid damaging the wood, you must be able to lay the door on its side and plan it from the outside edge inwards.

Start removing excess wood from each side of the door with a planer. If 6mm must be removed from the side of a door, 3mm must be removed from each side. Please keep in mind that each door is unique and will have different trimming allowances. Before trimming your door, check with your manufacturer to see what the allowances are.

After trimming, hold the door up to the frame to ensure it fits properly. When checking the fit, chamfer the hinge edge to prevent the hinges from binding between the door and its lining.

A video demonstrating the above process can be found at the bottom of this article.

4. Attaching the Hinges to the Frame

To hang the door, three hinges are recommended. The new hinges can be installed in existing hinge cut-outs in the door lining. If your old door had only two hinges, the third one should be centered between the top and bottom hinges. You may be unable to use existing cut-outs because they are disorganized or the wrong size for your new hinges. In these cases, a small piece of wood can be inserted into the cut-outs to allow for the installation of new hinges.

Mark the location of your door's hinges so they can be cut out and installed, and make sure all screw holes are pre-drilled.

Next, cut out and fit the latch, making sure the handles are correctly aligned with the latch position.

The existing latch position in the door lining can be used to determine the new latch position. Please keep in mind that door latches should not be installed near door mid rails where the joint may be compromised.

5. Door Hanging Temporarily

You can hang the door temporarily to check the fit and install handles. To accomplish this, position the door 90 degrees against the frame and add screws to the top and bottom latches to temporarily secure it in place.

Only after the door has been fully finished, with no exposed edges and all of the ironmongery installed, should it be fully installed.

6. Putting on the Door Handle

You can now install the handles and latch plate with the door temporarily installed.

Install the new latch plate to the door lining and ensure that the door latch engages properly when the door is closed. The door should open and close smoothly, with no need for force.

7. Finishing Your Front Door

When you're satisfied with the fit, it's time to move on to the finishing. Before painting or staining, remove the door and all hardware, lightly sand the door, and finish with a suitable product- please see XL finishing instructions printed on the door label within its packaging.

Remember to treat the top and bottom of the door, as well as the hardware cut-outs, door faces, and edges. When finishing is complete, it is safe to remove paint and peel from glazed doors.

Allow the door to dry before refitting the hardware after the final finishing coat has dried. Your door is now complete and ready to be rehung.

You can follow along by watching the video below: