Doors and windows sticking in your mobile home

When doors in a mobile home start to drag, will not latch or drift open by themselves, the cause is often under the floor: one or more piers have gone down, the beam above has sagged, and the door openings have been pulled out of square. We read the frame at every pier, find the low ones and bring the home back to level. When the doors are the main symptom, a relevel is typically the fix: $450 to $800 for a singlewide and $750 to $1,400 for a doublewide, written down after we have looked.

Read the pattern

Before you call anyone, a few minutes with the doors tells you a lot:

• One opening or many? A single bedroom door that sticks in August is often the door. Front door, back door and a hall door that all started in the same season is usually the frame.
• Which end? If the binding openings are grouped at one end or along one side of the home, the piers under that area are the place to start.
• Where is the rub? Look for a shiny worn patch on the door edge or the jamb. A rub at the top of the latch side tells a different story from one at the bottom of the hinge side. Take a photo before you adjust anything.
• Does it swing on its own? A door that drifts open or shut when you let go is hanging in a wall that is no longer plumb.
• Windows. A sliding window that drags in its track usually sits in an opening that has racked.
• Outside. Walk round and look for skirting bowing near the same corner, and for water that stands under that end after rain.

Why it happens on North Port ground

The walls sit on the floor, the floor on the steel beams, and the beams on piers. If one pier sinks, the beam above it dips, and every rectangular opening above that point goes slightly out of square. Doors are fitted with small gaps, so they tell you first.

The soils across North Port are poorly and very poorly drained flatwood sands, and for part of the year the water table can be within 6 to 18 inches of the surface. Low spots pond. If rainwater keeps collecting under one end of a home, the pads there sit in wet sand, and that end can drop first. When we level a home, we look at where the water goes as well as the piers.

When to call us

Call if more than one door or window has started sticking, if a door swings by itself, or if a doublewide’s ceiling seam has opened. The piers next to a sunken one can take on extra load while you wait. To get a starting number, try the relevel cost calculator, or read how we handle a relevel and pier and pad repair. If the doors went wrong right after someone else leveled the home, see leveling done wrong. Whoever does the work, ask for their FLHSMV mobile home installer licence number and look it up.