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Pocket Doors On Track by Mary Ellen Polson |
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Few things are more elegant -- and elusive -- than the smooth roll and click of pocket doors in perfect working order. Those of us lucky enough to have a set of top-hung or floor-track sliding doors live for the day when we can silently part them, like the Red Sea, and invite the guests in the front parlor to dinner. While many readers tell us they've never had a moment's trouble with their pocket doors, others tell us that their doors stick, balk, bind, scrape, gap, make noise, or won't move at all. In most cases, the trouble results from a lack of alignment -- usually caused by settlement in the building, or from damage inflicted at some point in the house's past. Before you begin to troubleshoot your pocket door problems, however, first determine what kind of doors you have. Pocket doors come in two basic types -- floor track and top-hung. More common in mid-19th-century houses, floor-track doors roll in and out of their pockets on sheaves, or rollers, that ride on a metal track. The track is usually recessed into the floor, although sometimes the track rests directly on the surface. Late in the 19th century, top-hung doors superseded the floor-track type. In top-hung doors, the carriers containing the rollers, or wheels, run in an overhead track in a recess above the doorway soffit designed for the purpose. Top-hung doors are far more common than floor-track doors. Thanks to a proliferation of pocket door hardware manufacturers in the late-19th century, the mechanisms vary more than those for floor-track doors. That said, there are three basic types: single roller, double roller, and trolley style. By shining a flashlight up into the track above your doors, you should be able to tell which of the three types you've inherited. Floor-track and all three types of top-hung doors tend to suffer from the same sorts of problems--sticking, warping, rolling too far or not far enough, and in the worst cases, damaged or missing rollers or tracks. In many situations, the solutions are the same, even if the mechanisms that control movement differ. Alignment. Many of the clearances around a smoothly operating pocket door are only about 1/4". If your doors stick, balk, or refuse to come out at all, building settlement is probably to blame. Begin with the obvious: if your house or apartment has had a lot of alterations, the doors could be nailed in place or sealed up. Look for nails through door edges, or a stop piece or furring strip nailed across the door opening. Secondly, use a flashlight to check for broken plaster or other debris inside the door pocket. Floor-track doors that refuse to budge may have jumped the track. Lift and rock the door to get it back on track. Floor-track doors also have a guide pin that slides in a slot at the top of the door. If the door has slipped off the pin, wiggle the door around to get it back on center. In some cases the door may have subsided so much that the guide pin no longer engages the slot. In that case, you have three options: 1) increase the length of the guide pin with a wood dowel; 2) add a thin strip of furring or moulding to the stop mouldings on either side of the door; or 3) shim the bottom track slightly. (Be judicious if you shim; if you raise the track too much, you'll create a tripping hazard.) If a top-hung door is balky, it may be binding either on the track above or on the floor below. Fortunately, the height of the rollers is adjustable. Locate the slanted screw mechanism on top of the door just inside the recess area. If the door is scraping against the floor, turn the adjustment screw so that it pulls the door upward. Tap some shims under the door to hold it about 1/4" off the floor. After you've raised the door and removed the shims, make sure the door hangs at least 3/16"off the floor. If the door is too high, adjust the screw to lower it. Be careful not to unscrew it completely, however, or the door will fall off! Settling. As buildings settle with age, floors have a tendency to bow in the middle or at the edges of a room. Both conditions can cause your pocket doors to gap when closed, especially if they're floor track. You can help your doors hang straighter by shimming under the track -- under the center for doors that gap at the bottom, and near the edges of the track for doors that gap at the top. Obviously, the more you shim, the more chance you have of creating a tripping problem. If a top-hung door gaps, check to see that the roller mechanism isf securely fastened to the top of the door, and that the door itself is not warped. Adjusting the roller height may help alleviate the problem. The stop mouldings along the side jambs or along the top track may be loose or warped; carefully remove them and re-nail them in the correct alignment. Missing Stops. If one or both of your doors rolls past the center point, exposing its rear edge, the stop piece is probably missing. On floor-track doors, the metal stop piece should be at the top center of the door opening. On top-hung doors, the stop piece is a retractable metal or wood finger on the rear edge of the door. The finger catches on the jamb when the door rolls out. You can make a stop for a floor-track door with an L-shaped steel bracket. Cut down one of its legs so that it just meets the top of the door, and screw it into the center top track. If the door rolls too far into its pocket, add a stop block on the back edge of the door, near the center. The stop should be just deep enough that the door rolls into its pocket flush with the opening. Damaged or missing tracks or rollers. If the floor track is missing or unsalvageable but the rollers are fine, you or a local machine shop may be able to fabricate a replacement. You'll need to buy a length of flat stock (mild steel) of the approximate width and length of the missing track at a builder's supply store. You'll also need a steel rod in a diameter that matches up to the groove in the rollers. Drill holes about 6" apart down the center of the flat stock. Tack-weld the steel rod onto the flat plate from behind. Next, drill countersunk screw holes into the edges, for installation into the floor. To gain access to the floor track inside the pockets, remove just enough plaster to allow enough clearance to use a screwdriver in the space. Once the track is installed and tested, repair the plaster. If essential top-hung hardware is too far gone to salvage, don't despair. You may be able to replace the mechanism (see Suppliers), or have a machine shop fabricate needed parts (check your Yellow Pages). Understanding how the mechanism you need works is half the battle. Photo: Van Jones Martin; illustrations: Kathy Bray |
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