Many of the bathroom doors nowadays are made of PVC material. Yes, these are PVC doors for bathrooms. Gone are the days of wooden doors that ultimately warp or rot due to the inherent moisture of bathrooms. This is especially if the bathrooms aren't big to start with, and water gets splashed around frequently.

The plastic door is certainly waterproof and the problems associated with wood doors are now non-existent.

Durability is, however, another story.

One of the our PVC doors wasn't as durable as we thought. The PVC door now binds to the PVC door jamb at the latchbolt side. When opened, the door drops slightly to an angle, and when you close it you have to lift the door knob a bit so the PVC door fits into the PVC door frame.


Problem with the PVC Door

What has happened is that the screws in the hinges have detached from the PVC door jamb. Rescrewing them works, but then they get pulled out detach again after just a few days. With the original screw holes deformed, I attempted to relocate the 3 PVC door hinges along the PVC door jamb. I lowered 2 hinges and raised 1 of them along the jamb.

Pictured above is the PVC door jamb next to the pink bathroom tiles. You'll notice the 2 sets of screw holes that have been made for one the hinges.

The PVC plastic material of jambs where the the hinges were installed wasn't just thick or durable enough. The contractor probably used an inferior brand of PVC door frame which comes with the PVC door as a package. The pvc door jamb was essentially hollow, but it could've had a few layers of PVC material inside so the screws could've gripped the jamb better.

Solution to Replace the Damaged PVC Door

One way around this problem is to replace the damaged part of the PVC door jamb. This is specifically the area where the door hinges are located. As seen from the picture above, the damaged and worn area is rather large and a hardening compound like a wood filler to cover it all is not enough. A block of wood to fill this piece is a better feasible option.

Although the area taken by the hinge is really just around 1 1/4" x 1 1/4", it is better to replace the area that has been damaged and worn. This is for the following:
  • Cleaner Appearance. By taking out the entire worn area, you eliminate having to deal with the worn out and damaged set of holes.
  • Stronger Adhesion. By having a wider area to glue the block of wood, its adhesion will be much stronger.
  • Stronger Jamb. Because the wider area will be replaced by wood, you could move the hinge to another part of the stronger wood in the future, if necessary.

The next post on this series will discuss the materials and procedures to replace the damaged part of the door jamb.


 

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