Closing the Door

The garage door from the house had a spring hinge installed as the middle hinge. That worked well, keeping the door closed as we moved through it. A few months ago, however, the spring hinge broke. Not sure what happened, but I came home one day and it was broken.

So I took it off and headed down to Home Depot. And then to Lowes. And finally a True Value in Elizabeth, none of them having a spring hinge like I needed. I surfed around the Internet, and found a few at Hardware Hut, but none seemed like the right color and $30 for a hinge?!? Seemed outrageous.

We didn’t have any closure on the door for a few weeks and that didn’t work. It would fly open when someone let go, so I knew we had to do something. I got a closure from Home Depot for about $15, thinking that would work, but it didn’t.

The first few days it was OK, but the screws going through the trim didn’t hit a stud and started pulling the trim loose. So I disconnected it while I looked for longer screws. A few weeks later I managed to get some and screw into a stud above the trim.

Except the angle meant that the door didn’t close right. It would sometimes close, sometimes not. So I moved my longer screws into the trim, and slightly to the side to hit a stud. That worked better, but it still didn’t close all the way.

And it was hard to open. Everyone in the family complained about how hard it was to push the door. And what’s worse is that it would close slowly and you couldn’t force it. So you had to stand there for 10-15sec while the door closes and then manually close it all the way. 10sec doesn’t sound like much, but stand next to a door you went through and wait for it. It’s annoying.

I got fed up this week after doing some work in the garage, so I went back to Hardware Hut and just ordered a 4” spring hinge. It wasn’t the right finish, but I can more easily match this finish and change the other two hinges if we want.