replacing door frames

[alprod]

Hi,

I am restorating my 100 year old house and have had the upstairs replastered after removing all the old skirting and arcs.

Stupidly after having it replastered I have now noticed that the old door frames upstairs are all warped and out of shape quite significantly, with one side being about 5-7 mm higher than the other. The top of the old doors are cut with a noticable slope.

Ideally I want to replace the old frames but am worried about how much damage this will do to the surrounding plaster. My question is, how hard are they too remove and will it do alot of damage to my newly plasterd walls?

Cheers

 

[joinerjohn]

If your careful, damage to the plaster should be minimal. The new architrave should cover the edges where the new door frame meets.
Please tell me the architraves were removed before the plastering was done.

 

[alprod]

Yeah, I removed skirts an arcs before the plastering. Bought some new mdf skirts and arcs and plan was to get them up this weekend but when I noticed the state of the frames I nearly cried

 

[pompeyal]

I would expect that your door frames have been fitted using cut nails, it will be very hit and miss on doing damage on the removal as sometimes these nails twist and go out of shape when fitted. I would suggest to put several saw cuts across the frame and remove small pieces at a time to give minimum damage, where the nails are try to split the wood away from the nails to expose them and then using an angle grinder with a steel cutting blade to take off the tops of the nails. At the same time if you have thresholds, remove them in the same way and either replace them when fitting the new frame or repair the floor to allow the floor covering go under the door. If you do the later and want to use the original doors you will have to make up the thickness of the door liner top to suit the material thickness removed from the threshold, the extra thickness of the top of the liner can then be covered by the architrave.

 

[alprod]

Cheers, what about trying to repait them. The problem with them all is that one side of the frame is about 5mm higher than the other so top of frame and doors are sloping. The only way I could think of would be to cut out a 5mm section near the top of the frame on the higher side and then glue it back together. I was thinking of just using a hand saw and sawing horizontally across the taller side about 3/4 of the way up...but for the proce of a new door lining/casing I would rather get a new one in, just scared about it damaging my plaster.

 

[pompeyal]

Putting a new liner in would be favourite but there is always a risk of some plaster damage however carefull you are, maybe a word with your plasterer on how good a repair he can make to any damage sustained, if he is a good one there should be no great problem.

 

[speed]

run a stanley round the outside of the frame where plaster meets frame to seperate them.
then cut the frame in half on each leg and head and remove them as 4 pieces.

when you make the new frame add some plywood triangles on the corners to temp hold it square and a lath at the bottom so the frame is nice and square and parellel then its just a case of wedging it the opening and leveling the head