A home is a significant investment, with many mortgage terms ranging from 20-30 years. It’s reasonable for hairline cracks in walls and ceilings, and doorframe separation from your walls to cause anxiety. Is your family’s biggest investment going to surprise you with hidden costs that you hadn’t included in your budget?
4 Causes of Your Door Frame Pulling Away from the Wall
There are several culprits behind a doorway pulling away from the wall. There are costs to fix all four of the common causes, but not all of them are significant.
1. Thermal Expansion
All building materials have different coefficients of thermal expansion. Take mercury as a simple non-building example. Mercury was used in thermometers because it has a high coefficient of expansion. When atmospheric temperatures rise, it quickly expands. When things cool down, it quickly contracts and the red bar of mercury in your thermometer drops.
Building materials experience the same expansion and contraction. Depending on the materials your door, door frame, and the surrounding wall are made of, temperatures can cause their size to fluctuate at different rates. This can be the cause behind a door frame separating from a wall.
The Fix: If the gaps are minimal, a good mortar joint or sealant material can be used to fill the gap. Larger gaps may require material replacements (such as a higher quality door frame). Contact a building contractor for more information, as Leveled Concrete is not an expert on the subject.
2. Humidity and Swelling
Humidity and swelling can also be the cause behind separation. However, like the cause above, this doesn’t typically apply to an interior door frame pulling away from a wall. Interior frames and walls are usually in climate and humidity-controlled environments.
For external door frames, humidity can cause wooden doors and frames to enlarge and damage the frame and surrounding wall.
The Fix: Sometimes a good sealant on your doors and frames is all it takes to prevent swelling from humidity.
3. Improper Wall Construction
If your home is new, the cause behind your door trim pulling away from the wall could be due to bad brick wall construction practices. Standard practice is to only build brick walls up at less than 1.5m at a time. Building more than this at one time could lead to cracks between masonry and your door frame.
The Fix: Leveled Concrete is not an expert on home building. Generally speaking, if the building of your new home employed bad masonry practices, the reconstruction costs could be significant.
4. Foundation Issues
In many cases, an interior door frame pulling away from the wall is a sign of foundation problems.
Doorways are built plumb. When a foundation settles, the door frame falls out of plumb which can cause the frame to twist and the door to stick. There are no lasting superficial fixes to this problem.
The Fix: Home foundation repair is the solution to your door frame woes. While these repairs can be costly, foundation repair financing is usually available from providers.
Resolve Cracks from Foundation Issues with Leveled Concrete
Leveled Concrete offers foundation remediation in Houston and its surrounding areas. Whether the fix requires polyurethane foam concrete lifting or pressed pilings foundation repair in Houston, Leveled Concrete has you covered.
Contact us today for a free estimate on your foundation fix!