Interior door hanging tips

If you have ever tried to hang an interior door you understand the frustration of using a level. Most handymen only have a 4' level in their tool box or at the most a 6' level, neither of which is long enough to go the whole length of the door jamb. Another problem with levels is that the bubbles are seldom perfectly accurate. Even brand new levels are seldom perfect. I have found that setting your level aside and using a plumb bob is a much more accurate method of setting door jambs. Most reel in chalk lines can double as a plumb bob or you can spend a few bucks and buy an official one.

Here's how you do it. Hang the plumb bob in the rough opening from the outside face of the drywall on the door header to an inch or two off the floor. I usually try to keep it about 6" away from the hinge side stud. Make sure it has stopped swinging then simply make 2 pencil marks on the drywall by measuring over equal distance from the top and bottom of the plumb bob line. Then take a straight edge or a chalk line and connect the dots. You now have a perfectly plumb line marked on the drywall that you can use to set your hinge side door jamb to. If your drywall has been painted already make sure you keep the line close enough to the edge so the door casing will cover it up.

Straight and plumb studs in your door openings will also make door hanging much easier. If you are doing your own framing make sure that the studs you use for the door openings are as straight as possible and of course make sure the walls are as plumb as possible. If your walls are already framed in make sure you check the rough opening studs for plumb with an accurate level before the drywall is installed. If they are off a little you can usually knock the bottoms one way or the other with a hammer to plumb them up better. If they are really out of plumb you might want to put a stop payment on that check you wrote to the framing crew until they come back to fix them. Also make sure you have the correct rough opening dimensions so you can use standard sized interior doors. The rule of thumb is add 2" in width and 2-1/2" in height to the desired door size for the rough opening. If your door is 30" wide and your jambs are 3/4" thick then your rough opening should be 32" wide. If your doors are to be 80" high then the rough opening height should be about 82-1/2" off the sub-floor. This will give you room to shim your door jambs perfectly plumb in the opening.

More interior door hanging tips will be forthcoming on my next post.