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A contractor built a shed in my backyard, but the door frame is a bit off.

It is too wide for the bolt to make it into the strike plate, or even to contact the weather stripping and keep wind/rain out.

Gap between door jamb and door Gap measured door frame corner

How can I go about fixing this so the door can actually latch?

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    Call the contractor back to fix it. Besides that, remove the door trim and pry the frame back together and add more shims.
    – crip659
    Commented Nov 2, 2023 at 23:04
  • How does that even happen? Shim and nail the hinge-side and top-side jambs then just nail the remaining side with no shims?
    – aquaticapetheory
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 0:11
  • @aquaticapetheory, who said the top and hinge side are shimmed?
    – popham
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 1:50
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    generally new doors are pre-hung and you'd have to try to end up in that situation. it does look like the strike side of the jamb must have moved away from where it should be relative to the head jamb.
    – Fresh Codemonger
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 5:41
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    If the contractor won't fix it, pull the door jamb and insert 1/4" (or whatever thickness—hard to see in your pic) shims, or one long piece, and screw the jamb back in place.
    – Huesmann
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 14:20

1 Answer 1

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When a door is installed, you nail (or screw) the jamb to the rough opening framing with some shims in between to keep the whole door+jamb assembly square, plumb, and properly spaced in the opening. It doesn't look like there are any shims between the jamb you show and the 2x4 it's attached to. You don't provide pictures of that but it's a safe bet that there are no shims on the other side or at the top either. So in addition to the jambs being too far apart, the other jamb is probably whacked in all sorts of wonky. Even if there are shims, it's very likely that the jamb's not set up right there either given how it looks where you're showing it.

To set this right, you should to pull the door and the jamb and reinstall the whole thing properly. You could tweak and fiddle that strike plate jamb to make it work but then you'll still likely have problems with the other side.

That's a call-back to have the door redone but given how it was done in the 1st place, I don't know that I'd trust this one to do it right the second time. But that's just me.

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