Having difficulty fixing my sagging door by bending its hinge

Question

I've watched a few YouTube videos that showed me how to fix a sagging door by bending the knuckles of the door hinge, such as this one and this one here.

However, I am perplexed as to how these instructors are able to do this by using a crescent wrench as the tool to do so. I just can't seem to get a firm grip on the knuckles to perform the bend. This isn't surprising considering that the shape of the knuckles is circular, thus causing the tool to slip/rotate.

Am I missing something?

Answer 1

In all my years of hanging doors, prehung and many from scratch, where the hinges were cut in as well as all the other hardware, I have never needed to bend a single hinge. If the sagging is from loose screws, they need tightening or replace with a longer screw for better grab. Sometimes the hinge need a shim placed behind it cut from cardboard and build up the thickness as needed to get the gap right. Even hinge makers supply the precut cardboard to use as shims. At least with Stanley commercial grade hinges. But there would need to be a really good series of pictures presented to suggest where the shims need to go or even where the problem area might be. But these two tricks are all I ever used to remedy a door that was originally set well in it's opening. If it was not set right to begin with, usually other factors need to be addressed as well

Answer 2

You need to study the door and its sag carefully. Some things to look at:

When you pull up on the door knob edge of the door do you see:

1. Does it look like the door jamb on the upper hinge side is moving?
2. Does the jamb look solid but the upper corner of the door is moving toward the hinge side?
3. Or does it appear as if the door itself is flexing?

The answer to these will give you a clue as where to start. For:

1. Possibly the jamb is pulling away from the framing and could use a couple of long screws through the hinge through the jamb and into the framing.
2. The hinge itself may be loose, worn or broken. Try to tighten the hinge screws or replace the hinges.
3. The door may be so old and tired that the joints in the door have just come unglued. Options here could include door replacement, door disassembly and re-gluing or even a temporary diagonal support rod/wire from the lower latch side to the upper hinge side with a turnbuckle (very commonly seen installed on old wood frame screen doors after the weather attacks the joints in the frame).