Installation of Interior Doors

Preparatory Work

There are several ways to install doors, but all of them can be done by yourself. The installation may vary in details, but the general sequence remains the same. In general, to install a door you need the following tools:

Photo 1 — Required Tools

In addition, you need to prepare nails, screws, wooden shims, construction foam. Other tools and consumables are prepared as needed and depending on the nature of additional work.

Installation of Interior Doors – Instructions

Assembly and installation of interior doors begins with preparing the door opening or assembling the door frame – these two procedures do not depend on each other at first. If you are replacing a door rather than installing it for the first time in a specific location, it makes sense to remove the old door and prepare the door opening for installing the new one when the door frame of the new door is already ready.

The sequence of all remaining actions is described by general rules for installing a door, provided below; they can be used as a scheme or guide to action.

Photo 2 – Preparing the Door Opening

Preparing the Door Opening

Before installing doors – single, double, with or without a threshold – you must measure the door opening once again. The dimensions must allow installing the door frame and the door leaf, and the wall must be sufficiently straight vertically. This is important for both hinged and sliding doors.

Another important criterion for the readiness of the door opening is the floor in the room where the door will open – you must remember about the gap between the door and the floor. When buying a door from a company that installs doors, it is not advisable to neglect the services of a measurer who knows the specifics of their constructions.

Assembling the Door Frame

The methods of assembling the door frame depend on whether the door comes with a pre-assembled door frame or if you need to assemble it yourself. Buying a door with a ready-made frame can greatly simplify your life; but this option is ideal only for doors without thresholds.

Additional elements of the frame are also needed here: first, they are necessary to properly assemble the frame itself; secondly, marks must be made on the door leaf for hinge placement. The measured stiles are cut at a 45-degree angle, then marks for hinges must be made on the door and stile, indicating distances from the bottom and top edges of the door. The grooves for hinges are cut identically in both the door and frame.

It is important that all the above actions are performed on a completely flat surface to avoid errors.

Photo 3 – Assembling the Door Frame

Installing Hinges

Installing hinges is almost a point of no return: if the hinges are installed or the grooves for them have been cut, no company, even the most prestigious one, will accept any claims related to them.

Important! For both double-leaf and single doors, choose left and/or right steel hinges (considered almost eternal), not universal ones. Unlike universal hinges, left and right hinges allow removing the door when necessary.

Placing hinges according to general rules requires that there be 250 mm from the top and bottom edges, and the center hinge, i.e., the third one, should be located between two outer ones. Two hinges can also be used to secure a door provided that each one can withstand up to 80 kg. To cut grooves, you need a very sharp chisel, which is especially important for laminated doors. In some cases, it may be necessary to cover the surface of the door with tape to protect it from scratches.

Photo 4 – Securing Hinges

Installing the Frame and Door in the Door Opening

Assemble the frame, on which the door can now be hung (but hinges are not yet installed), into the door opening. The general order of installing doors may include installing thresholds if the door frame is much smaller than the opening dimensions. In such cases, installing thresholds on interior doors requires filling the space. For this purpose, several blocks of proper rectangular shape must be prepared, in which holes must be drilled.

Important! The installation of such blocks is done directly to the wall, if it is brick. If it is concrete, then you must first take care of installing nylon plugs for screws.

The prepared door opening, which already perfectly fits the door frame, is filled with the frame and leveling begins vertically, horizontally, and inside the opening (coordinates X, Y, and Z). The frame fixing starts from the side where hinges will be installed. Blocks used to fix the frame must be slightly narrower than the distance between the door and the opening. This is necessary to allow using shims for accurate adjustment of the frame.

Photo 5 – The space between the door frame and opening is filled with construction foam

The further installation process of interior doors requires even securing of the frame: the vertical stiles at the top and bottom are clamped with screws, then the third one is screwed in approximately where the door lock will be located.

When the entire frame is secured, it remains to check its straightness once more and then fill the cavities with construction foam, for example, MACROFLEX.

Attention! It is necessary to protect the door surface for which it is appropriate to use painter's tape (scotch can leave marks on the surface).

Installing the Lock and Door Trim

Installing a lock in an interior door is done before the door is placed in the frame. For this, mark the bottom of the mounting plate for the lock at approximately 1 meter from the floor. Place the lock and determine the external boundaries of its position on the door.

Depending on the construction of the lock – recessed, surface-mounted – grooves and/or holes for the lock itself are prepared. A drill bit, a coring bit for drilling, and a chisel with a hammer are the set of tools needed to recess the lock.

Photo 6 — Installing the Lock

The mounting plate for the door frame is installed later, once the door is already installed and it can be confidently said where exactly the lock will be located. Approximately at the same stage, the handle is installed on the interior door, but in many cases, the door handle combines with the door lock and therefore does not require additional actions.

Installing the Lock and Handle on an Interior Door (Video)

The final stage is installing the door trim. This stage largely depends on the door design, the presence of thresholds, and the type of wall finishing. In general, door trims are installed on a quarter of the door frame, but other variants are also possible. The trims are cut on a so-called “nose” and joined with nails at an angle of about 45 degrees. Sometimes for reliability, the joints are glued. The sequence of installing door trims is as follows: first, one of the vertical trims is installed, then the top horizontal one, and finally the other vertical one.

Photo 7 — Installing Door Trims

From everything said above, it is clear that installing interior doors by yourself is quite possible, but for successful completion, you need not only the right tools but also skills. From this point of view, it is necessary to critically assess your own capabilities and remember that professional installation can also save time.

Installation of Interior Doors – Video Guide

This video tells how to install an interior door yourself properly. The tips given in this video will be appreciated by any private craftsman interested in expanding their service list.

$ Installing Interior Doors: Prices and Comparing Services

The market offers a huge variety (it is sufficient to look at the list of brands – VOLHOVEC, BELLA COSA, ALAVUS, BELWOODS, PROFIL DOORS, DODIA, TITUL, UNION, MARIO RIOLI, DERA, VERDA and others to understand the level of competition). The main problem is precisely this factor. The prices for economical variants of interior doors in Moscow and Kiev are indeed at a low level:

• Moscow – from 1000 rub.
• Kyiv – from 150 UAH

The same thing shows the adjacent services market, where the cost of various works at many firms is approximately at the same level. Therefore, the concept of “cheap” now makes sense only in combination with the installed door. Here is an approximate list of main works in two capitals, from which it becomes clear how much a specific type of service costs from professionals:

• Single-leaf door – from 2000 rub / 300 UAH
• Double-leaf door – from 2300 rub / 490 UAH
• Measurer services – from 500 rub / 50 UAH
• Installation of thresholds – from 150 rub / 150 UAH (per meter)
• Lock installation – from 500 rub / 150 UAH
• Door leaf trimming – from 800 rub / 100 UAH

Naturally, some types of work may be provided free of charge as part of campaigns conducted by various companies. Also, it should be remembered that urgent installation or replacement of doors in emergency situations will have a completely different pricing order for the same types of services.