2

From what I know, prehung doors are a huge pain to install correctly. But, with door blanks, the hinges aren't routed out. Which of these methods is best when it comes to interior doors: using prehung doors or cutting out the hinge patterns on door blanks?

Are there any other ways to replace interior doors?

Improve this question
5

This would depend on the tools at hand. If you have the proper chisels and jigs using a blank would be fairly easy, and you would not have to worry about squaring and plumbing the frame.

If you only have a 4' level, a hammer, and some shims hanging a pre-hung door would probably be your best bet.

A third option is if you could find a pre-hung where the hinges would line up with the existing frame, you could simply hang the pre-hung door in the old frame. This option eliminates almost all the work.

In my opinion, if the existing frame is true I would rather use a blank. Most pre-hung doors come with really cheap crappy frames (unless you pay extra for a good one), so any time I've used one I ended up building my own frame anyway.

Improve this answer
  • 3
    Obviously, replacing with a prehung door, even a split jam prehung is a lot more work than mortising in hinges into a blank. The whole trick to proper door alignment is to scribe the hinge locations exactly by aligning the doors together and use a square to transfer the mortise locations. A jig and router is cool, but easily done with a sharp chisel and hammer. The technique is not difficult, but very hard to describe in words. Look up a video on TOH or Utube to help with the method. Too deep or shallow will cause door to not open/close properly. – shirlock homes Jan 10 '11 at 18:07

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.