How-to
Why doors stick in coastal Queensland homes, and the fix that lasts
Taylor, Swell Property Works 11 September 2026 5 min read
Short answer: a sticking door in a coastal home is almost always one of three things. The timber has swelled with humidity, the hinges have dropped, or the frame has moved with the house. Each has a different fix, and only one of them is the plane-a-bit-off job most people assume.
1. Humidity swelling
Timber doors, and the timber frames around them, take on moisture in the wet months. On the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast that's December to March, when humidity sits over 70 percent for weeks. A door that closes fine in August and jams in February is swelling. It usually binds along the latch edge or across the top, where the door was cut to size on installation and the bare timber was never sealed.
The fix
- Plane 2 to 3 mm off the tight edge so there's a proper clearance gap.
- Seal the planed edge and the top and bottom of the door. Unsealed end grain is what drinks the moisture.
- Do it in the humid season if you can, when the door is at its largest. Planing in winter often means planing again in summer.
2. Dropped hinges
If the door rubs on the floor at the latch side, or the gap at the top is wider on the latch side than the hinge side, the hinges have dropped. Screws pull out of soft door jambs, and cheap zinc hinges wear. It's especially common on solid-core doors and on entry doors that have had years of slamming.
The fix
- Replace the short hinge screws with longer ones that bite into the wall stud behind the jamb.
- Swap worn hinges for stainless or brass ball-bearing hinges, which is what we fit near the coast anyway.
- Re-pack or re-chisel the hinge recesses if they've been chewed out.
3. House movement
If the door binds at the top corner and the gap along the top has gone from parallel to a wedge, the frame has racked. Reactive clay soils in parts of the Tweed and older Queenslanders on stumps move a little every year. Planing the door just hides it for a season.
The fix
Re-square the frame where possible, or re-hang the door to the frame as it now sits and adjust the strike plate. On a high-set home, persistent racking is worth having the stumps checked.
Quick test: close the door and look at the gap around it. Even gap and it binds only in summer means humidity. Wedge-shaped gap means hinges or movement.
What we do on a call-out
We diagnose which of the three it is, then fix it properly: plane and seal, re-hinge, or re-hang and re-strike. Most sticking doors are sorted in one visit for $120 to $220. See our door fitting and repairs page, or send a photo of the door and the gap.
Related questions
You can, but sand or plane the correct edge, take off only a couple of millimetres, and seal the bare timber afterwards. Unsealed edges swell again the next wet season.
Usually it was cut to size on install and the cut edges were never sealed, or it was hung in the dry season with no allowance for summer swelling.
They're heavier, so hinge screws pull out sooner. Use longer screws into the stud and ball-bearing hinges and they behave.