A door that closed fine in April and jams by August hasn't gone bad. Something small has moved — a hinge has sagged a fraction, or the wood has swelled with summer humidity — and small causes have small fixes. The mistake is reaching for a plane before you know which one you're dealing with. Here's how to fix a door that sticks, in the order a carpenter would try things.
Run the card test. Close the door and slide an index card into the gap between door and frame, working your way around. Where the card glides, you have clearance. Where it pinches hard or won't go, that's contact. Mark the pinch points with painter's tape. Two minutes of this tells you more than ten minutes of guessing.
Read the gap. Stand back and look at the reveal — the gap around the closed door. It should be roughly even all the way around, about ⅛ inch. A gap that's wide at the top and pinched at the bottom, or the reverse, means the door is hanging crooked. An even gap with one tight stretch means swollen wood or a paint problem at that stretch.
Check the paint. Rubbing leaves evidence: a shiny polished patch on the door's edge, cracked paint on the frame, fresh scratches on the strike plate. If the shiny patch is on the painted edge itself, you may be looking at paint buildup rather than wood.
More sticking doors end here than anywhere else. Doors are heavy, hinges take the load, and the short screws builders use barely bite into the jamb — never mind the stud behind it.
Tighten every hinge screw. Start with the top hinge, jamb side. If a screw spins without grabbing, the hole is stripped. Dip toothpicks in wood glue, pack the hole, snap them off flush, let the glue set, and drive the screw back in. It'll hold like new wood.
Use the 3-inch screw trick for a sagging door. If the door rubs at the top corner on the latch side, it has sagged — the top hinge has pulled away from the jamb. Remove one screw from the top hinge's jamb side and replace it with a 3-inch screw, driven through the jamb and into the wall stud behind it. That long screw pulls the top of the door back up and toward the hinge side, which is exactly the direction a sagging door has drifted away from. Try the door after each few turns; you can watch the top gap even out.
Shim a hinge for small rubs on the hinge side. If the door rubs the frame on the hinge side itself, loosen that hinge's jamb-side screws, slip a strip of thin cardboard behind the leaf, and retighten. The shim moves that corner of the door away from the hinge jamb by the cardboard's thickness. It sounds like nothing; a rub is usually nothing, measured in thirty-seconds of an inch.
If the hinges are tight, the door hangs straight, and it still binds at one spot, the wood itself is in the way. This is the humidity case most of the time: the door has swelled into its frame.
Mark the high spot generously. Rub pencil lead along the binding edge, close the door, and the pencil will transfer to the frame — or mark the stretch between your tape flags and add an inch on each side.
Take off less than you think. A block plane set fine, or 80-grit paper on a block, working along the grain. For a whisper of a rub, plane with the door hanging; for anything more, take the door off its hinges and work on sawhorses. Test-fit, then take a little more if needed. You can always remove more wood. Putting it back is another project.
Seal the bare wood the same day. Prime or paint the planed edge before the door goes back to work. Skip this and the exposed wood drinks the next humid week straight out of the air, and you'll be planing the same door again next summer. Half the repeat offenders are unsealed edges.
One sticking door is a door problem. Several doors starting to stick in the same season — with gaps that keep changing and fresh cracks creeping out of the corners of the frames — is the house moving, not the doors. That's a different diagnosis, and our guide to telling normal drywall cracks from serious ones covers the same settlement signs from the wall side. Don't plane three doors to fit a shifting frame. Patio doors follow the same diagnose-first logic — start with the track rather than the rollers, as our fix for a sliding glass door that's hard to open explains.
Planing first. Most sticking doors are a screwdriver problem. Wood you plane off in August becomes a drafty gap in January.
Forcing the door for months. Shouldering a sticking door shut bends the hinges and wears the latch, turning a five-minute screw fix into a hinge replacement. A door that suddenly won't latch at all has usually been bent out of shape this way — our walkthrough on fixing a door that won't latch picks up where that problem starts.
Skipping the seal. Covered above, worth repeating: bare edges swell back.
Planing the wrong edge. The card test takes two minutes. Skipping it and shaving the edge that "looks tight" is how doors end up with a rub in a new place and a gap in the old one.
Diagnose with a card, fix the hinges with a screwdriver and one long screw, and let the plane stay in the toolbox until the door proves it needs wood removed. Squeaks along the way are a separate, easier fix — a squeaky hinge is usually a dry pin asking for lubricant, not a symptom of the sticking. And when the rub turns out to be swelling, remember the seal coat is the part that makes the fix permanent.
Humidity. Wood absorbs moisture from summer air and swells; winter heating dries it back down. A door that sticks every July and frees up every January is a seasonal fit problem — fix it with the hinge checks first, and if you do plane, leave a little extra clearance and seal the edge well.
Doing it yourself costs the price of a few screws. Calling it in, a handyman visit for one door is commonly quoted around $75–$150, depending on your area — which is why it's worth trying the screwdriver first.
For a small, marked high spot, yes — wedge the door steady and work carefully. For real material removal, take it down. You'll do cleaner work on sawhorses, and you won't be fighting the door's weight mid-stroke.
Paint is thickness. A fresh coat on the door's edge and the frame can add enough to close a gap that was already tight — and paint stays slightly soft for days after it feels dry. Give it a week to cure fully, then sand the edge lightly if it still binds.
When it's not alone: several doors sticking at once, gaps that change from month to month, and diagonal cracks at the corners of door and window frames. One door with a steady, seasonal rub is carpentry. A houseful of changing doors deserves a closer look at what's underneath.