How Do You Adjust a Wardrobe Door Hinge?

To adjust a single wardrobe door hinge, open the door and find the three screws on the concealed hinge. The screw in the hinge arm nearest the door moves it left or right, the mounting plate or its cam screw moves it up or down, and the rear screw moves it closer to or further from the carcass. Turn whichever screw matches the problem by a quarter turn, close the door, look at the result and repeat until the gap looks even. The whole job needs one crosshead screwdriver.

Read the gap before you touch a screw

The fault tells you which hinge needs attention and which way to turn. Close the door and study the gap along the hinge side, the gap on the handle side and the gap along the top and bottom.

If the handle side gap is wider at the top than the bottom, the door is leaning and the top hinge needs side adjustment. If the gap is even but too wide along the whole edge, both hinges need the same amount of side adjustment. If the door sits low against the carcass base, it needs height adjustment. If the door face stands proud of its neighbour at one end only, that is a depth problem at the hinge nearest the proud end.

This diagnostic step saves considerable time. Adjusting screws at random on a door with two or three hinges usually makes the alignment worse before it gets better.

Side adjustment for uneven vertical gaps

This is the most frequently needed adjustment and the most visible when it is wrong. The screw sits in the hinge arm, closest to the door. Turning it moves the door edge towards or away from the hinge side by a few millimetres in total.

Direction varies between manufacturers. Make a quarter turn, close the door and see which way it moved, then continue or reverse accordingly. Adjust the top and bottom hinges by equal amounts to shift the whole door sideways, or one hinge alone to correct a lean.

On a pair of doors that meet in the middle, split the correction between them rather than moving one a long way. Moving each door a small amount keeps the outer gaps even, which is what the eye actually notices from across the room.

Height adjustment

Height is controlled at the mounting plate on the carcass side. Two designs are common. Some plates fix through elongated slots, so you loosen both screws slightly, slide the door to the right height and retighten. Others have a separate cam screw that raises and lowers the plate without loosening anything, which is easier and less likely to disturb your side adjustment.

Adjust both hinges together for height. Moving only one tilts the door, which then needs side adjustment to correct, and you end up going round in circles.

If the door sits noticeably lower than it should and no amount of height adjustment holds, the screws have probably enlarged their holes in the board. Remove the screw, glue a wooden matchstick or thin dowel into the hole, let it set, then refit. This gives a fresh grip and is far more reliable than fitting a wider screw, which tends to split the board.

Depth adjustment and doors that will not stay shut

The rear screw on the hinge arm controls how far the door sits from the carcass front. It is the adjustment for two specific complaints.

The first is a door that swings back open or sits slightly ajar. Almost always there is too much clearance for the catch to engage. Winding the door in towards the carcass fixes it. Check the catch plate too, since a plate that has worked loose gives the same symptom.

The second is a door face that is not flush with the one beside it. If one door stands proud, bring it in on the rear screws at both hinges. If it is proud at one end only, adjust the hinge nearest that end.

Depth adjustment has less range than the other two, typically two or three millimetres. If a door is well out of line and depth adjustment runs out of travel, the carcass itself is probably not square, which is a levelling issue rather than a hinge one.

Check the wardrobe is level and square

Doors that repeatedly go out of alignment are usually telling you something about the carcass. Wardrobes are large and light relative to their size, and standing one on an uneven floor will rack it slightly. Older UK homes with boarded floors are rarely flat.

Put a spirit level across the top of the wardrobe and along the base. If it is out, pack under the low corner with hardboard or plastic shims until the carcass sits square, then adjust the hinges. Doing it the other way round means adjusting hinges to compensate for a leaning carcass, which never quite works and puts continual stress on the fixings.

Load distribution plays a part too. Concentrating heavy items at one end of a wardrobe pulls the carcass out of square over years. Moving folded clothing into a modern chest of drawers UK sale unit spreads the weight and, as a bonus, makes the wardrobe easier to use.

Sliding doors and other hinge types

Not every wardrobe door runs on a concealed hinge. Sliding designs adjust at the bottom rollers, each with a height screw at one end of the door. Raising or lowering one roller squares the door within the track. Before adjusting, check the track for grit and hair, since debris is a more frequent cause of a sticking door than misalignment. If you are shopping for a small bedroom, sliding wardrobes UK sale designs also remove the need for door swing clearance altogether.

Traditional butt hinges, the visible rectangular type, have no adjustment. Correcting them means loosening the fixing screws and repositioning, or packing behind one leaf with thin card to change the door angle.

Mirrored doors deserve a note of caution. They are heavier than plain fronts, so their hinges carry more load and go out of alignment sooner. Check the fixings periodically. If you want a full length mirror without loading the wardrobe doors, a freestanding option from our modern cheval mirrors UK sale range takes the weight off the hinges entirely.

When a hinge needs replacing rather than adjusting

Some faults are beyond adjustment. A hinge arm that has bent will never hold alignment, and a cracked hinge cup or stripped mounting plate has to come out. Concealed hinges are largely standardised, with a 35mm cup being the common size, so a replacement is usually easy to source once you have measured the cup diameter and noted whether the door is a full overlay, half overlay or inset.

Replace hinges in pairs on the same door. A new hinge alongside a worn one gives inconsistent movement and you will be back adjusting again shortly.

It is also worth checking alignment a few weeks after assembling a new wardrobe. Board furniture settles as fixings bed in, and a small correction at that stage prevents a door dropping further. Every design in our wardrobes UK sale range uses standard concealed hinges, so this approach applies whether you have a two door unit or a wide multi door design, and the same principle covers other hinged pieces such as modern display cabinets UK around the home.

Setting a realistic target

Perfectly equal gaps are not always achievable, and chasing them can make things worse. A consistent 2mm to 3mm gap that runs parallel down the length of the door is the practical goal. What the eye notices is taper, a gap that is wider at one end than the other, far more than a gap that is slightly wide but even.

Judge the result from where you normally stand, a metre or two back, rather than crouched beside the hinge. Doors that look marginally off up close usually read as straight from across the room, and adjustments made from a close view tend to overshoot.

Work in daylight if you can. Side lighting from a window shows a tapering gap clearly, whereas overhead artificial light flattens it and hides exactly the fault you are trying to correct.

After the adjustment

Once the door hangs correctly, check the mounting plate screws are firm but not overtightened. Concealed hinge plates fix into board, and driving a screw hard past the point of resistance crushes the fibres and creates the loose fixing you will be dealing with in six months.

Open and close the door ten or fifteen times and look again. A door that aligns correctly when adjusted but drifts after use has a fixing beginning to give, and dealing with it now is a five minute job of filling and refitting the screw.

Keep the wardrobe’s assembly instructions if you still have them, since they identify the specific hinge type and any model particulars. At Furniture in Fashion the fitting guides supplied with each wardrobe show the hinge fitted to that design, which is quicker than working it out from the hinge itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which way should I turn the hinge screw?

Direction differs between manufacturers, so make a quarter turn, close the door and observe which way it moved. Continue in the same direction or reverse based on what you see.

My wardrobe door keeps swinging open. What should I adjust?

Use the rear depth screw to bring the door closer to the carcass so the catch can engage. Also check that the catch plate has not worked loose.

Can I adjust one hinge on its own?

Yes, and it is the right approach for a door that is leaning, where you adjust only the hinge nearest the widest part of the gap. To move a whole door sideways or up and down, adjust all its hinges equally.

Why do my wardrobe doors keep going out of line?

Usually the carcass is not standing level or square, often because of an uneven floor. Level the wardrobe with shims under the low corner first, then adjust the hinges.

How do I adjust a sliding wardrobe door?

Sliding doors adjust at the bottom rollers using a height screw at each end. Clear any debris from the track first, as grit is a more common cause of sticking than misalignment.