Help – Kitchen Cabinet door wouldn’t close completely.
Knight3136
| Posted in General Discussion on
Hello Everyone,
I’m having an issue and hopefully someone has an answer for me.
I have a kitchen cabinet door that won’t close in one corner. I don’t think the door is warped because I another door from another cabinet that is the same size and replace the one that was giving me issues. The same thing happened. The only thing that I did not replace were the hinges. It doesn’t matter how much I adjust the hinges by moving back and forward or up and down.
Any advice on what can it be and how to fix it.
Replies
Wow, what an amazing coincidence! I've been having the same problem, on the same corner, with one of my kitchen cabinet doors. Two days ago, after months of adjusting and tightening, the hinge broke. Both wings that attached the hinge to the frame broke off. I guess metal fatigue finally won the battle.
Obviously your hinges are configured differently than mine and your problem may be totally different but I figured I'd post this anyway.
After seeing your post I went to retrieve the hinge components from my waste basket where they were buried in a big pile of coffee grounds. I never did find the other broken section but you get the idea.
Good luck!
Are the cabinets new? If so it's not likely the hinge is the problem. In 40+ years of kitchen remodeling I can't recall that I've ever had to replace a euro hinge to fix the problem on your facing warped doors are much more common. Adjusting doors with Euro style hinges is often a dance between more than one door. If you have swapped doors and are sure it's not warped then you may need to adjust the opposing door out this in turn could cascade if there is another cabinet to the right it may need to be adjusted as well. I will say that being out of alignment a full 3/4" is extreme and unlikely to be absorbed by adjustments. I would still put a straight edge on the door. Any decent cabinet manufacturer warranties warped doors for some period of time. Those seem to be a mid-quality cabinet, solid wood panel but not prefinished prior to assembly, so I would expect some support, if they are new.
First determine if the door is truly warped. Remove it an lay it on a surface that is flat; a granite countertop, etc. That will show any warp instantly.
Then you will know for certain what you are dealing with.
The door is not warped. I removed another cabinet door of the same size that doesn't have any issue and replace it with the one that appears to be ward. After doing the swap the one that was good now appear warp and I put the one in the picture in the other cabinet and it was closing as it should. The only thing that I didn't change was the hinges.
One thought that comes to mind - could it be that the cabinet sides are not in the same plane? If, for example, the wall behind the cabinet is warped and the cabinet was not shimmed properly the two sides may be off. You could check this with a vertical level on both sides to see if they match.
That is my taught also, if it’s not the door, not the hinge, that leaves only the frame.
So i figure out the problem. With the help of everyone here. My cabinet is slanted. I made sure to my countertop was level. I then measured from the counter top to the bottom of the drawer on one side and it was 18 inches then I went to the other side of the cabinet and I got a measurement of 17 3/4 inches. I'm going to remove the screws to realign the cabinet to 18 inches from the countertop.
I'm not sure that will solve such a problem. Your cabinets are built in the American style with face frames which provide significant resistance against racking which can easily occur with frameless euro style cabinets.
As suggested improper shimming from the backwall might contribute to your problem, but I don't see how 1/4" variance in vertical placement would cause this.
I would suggest removing the doors from adjacent cabinets and placing a known straight edge across the face of the cabinets and see if the hinge side does show a gap. If so the cabinet needs to be reshimmed.
I also again urge you to place a straight edge along the door. Warped doors are quite common in commercial cabinets and your test leaves a lot of room for error it could be that the door you used as a benchmark was next to another warped door which hid the discrepancy. A straight edge does not lie.
I actually took the door from another cabinet that was across from the one that appears to be warped, not the one next to it. I order hinges to see if it is that. If not then I already got shims and jacks on their way to realign them.
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled