You adjust wardrobe hinges using the small screws on the hinge arm and mounting plate. On a standard concealed hinge there are three separate adjustments: side to side, which corrects the gap between doors, depth, which brings the door closer to or further from the carcass, and height, which raises or lowers the whole door. Turn one screw at a time, a quarter turn at a time, and check the result before moving on.<\/p>\n
Almost every misaligned wardrobe door can be corrected in ten minutes with a single screwdriver. The trick is knowing which of the three screws does what, because turning the wrong one makes the problem worse.<\/p>\n
Most modern wardrobes use concealed European hinges, sometimes called cup hinges. Open the door and you will see a cylindrical cup set into the back of the door, an arm reaching to the carcass, and a mounting plate screwed to the side panel.<\/p>\n
Older wardrobes may have butt hinges, the traditional flat leaf type screwed to the door edge and the frame. These have no built in adjustment. Correcting them means packing behind a leaf with thin card or deepening the recess, which is a slower job.<\/p>\n
Soft close hinges are concealed hinges with a damper built into the arm. They adjust in exactly the same way, though some have a small switch to alter the closing resistance.<\/p>\n
Close both doors and look at the gaps. The vertical gap between the doors should be even from top to bottom, usually 2mm to 4mm. The gap at the outer edges should match on both sides. The door faces should sit flush with each other.<\/p>\n
If the gap is wider at the top than the bottom, the door is leaning. If the doors touch in the middle, they need moving sideways. If one door sits proud of the other, that is a depth adjustment. If the doors are level with each other but not with the carcass top, that is height.<\/p>\n
Write down what you see before you touch anything. It is easy to lose track once you start turning screws.<\/p>\n
This is the screw furthest from the door, usually on the hinge arm where it meets the mounting plate. On many hinges it is the one directly under the arm.<\/p>\n
Turning it moves the door left or right, closing or opening the central gap. To straighten a leaning door, adjust the top hinge in one direction and the bottom hinge in the other. To move the whole door sideways, turn both hinges the same amount.<\/p>\n
Go in quarter turns. A full turn can move the door several millimetres, which on a wardrobe door is a lot.<\/p>\n
The depth screw sits in a slot on the hinge arm, closer to the carcass. Loosening it lets the door slide in or out from the side panel, which controls how tightly it closes and whether it sits flush with its neighbour.<\/p>\n
Loosen slightly, push or pull the door to the position you want, then retighten. Doors that catch on the carcass edge as they close usually need a small increase in depth.<\/p>\n
Height is set at the mounting plate rather than the hinge arm. On two piece plates there is a slotted screw that allows a few millimetres of vertical movement.<\/p>\n
Loosen the plate screws on both hinges, lift or lower the door to line up with the carcass, then retighten. Because both hinges must move together, this one benefits from a second pair of hands on a tall door.<\/p>\n
Adjust in a fixed order: height first, then side to side, then depth. Height affects the other two, so doing it last means redoing your work.<\/p>\n
Support the door as you loosen anything. A heavy full height door dropping on a partly loosened hinge can strip the screws out of the chipboard, which turns a ten minute adjustment into a repair job.<\/p>\n
After each change, close the door fully and check the gaps again. Small increments and frequent checks are far quicker than large corrections and guesswork.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the hinge is not the problem. If the wardrobe itself is out of square, no amount of hinge adjustment produces even gaps. Check the carcass with a spirit level and look at the floor beneath it. An uneven floor is the most common underlying cause, and packing the feet or plinth level fixes what hinge screws cannot.<\/p>\n
Stripped screw holes are the second common issue. If a hinge plate will not hold, remove the screws, glue a slim wooden dowel or a few matchsticks into the hole, let it set, then re drill and refit.<\/p>\n
Bent hinge arms and failed soft close dampers cannot be adjusted out and need replacing. Concealed hinges are largely standardised, so a matching replacement is usually straightforward to find.<\/p>\n
Where the carcass has sagged, the back panel has come loose or the chipboard is crumbling around the fixings, the unit is nearing the end of its useful life. Our modern wardrobes UK sale<\/a> range covers single door units through to wide multi door designs if replacement makes more sense than repair.<\/p>\n Most hinge trouble begins at assembly. A wardrobe built on an uneven floor, or one where the back panel was fitted without checking the carcass for square, will drift out of alignment within months.<\/p>\n Level the unit before hanging the doors, and check the diagonals of the carcass match. Do not overload a single door with heavy items hung on the inside, since that gradually pulls the hinges out of position.<\/p>\n If door alignment is a recurring nuisance in a narrow room where doors are constantly being forced past a bed, sliding doors sidestep the issue entirely. The modern sliding wardrobes UK sale<\/a> designs run on tracks with no hinges to drift.<\/p>\n The same adjustment principles apply across other hinged bedroom storage too, including modern bedside cabinets UK<\/a> and modern shoe storage cabinets UK sale<\/a> units, so it is a skill worth having. You can browse the full bedroom collection at Furniture in Fashion.<\/p>\n The side to side screw, usually where the hinge arm meets the mounting plate. Turn both hinges equally to move the whole door, or in opposite directions to correct a lean.<\/p>\n Most often the depth adjustment is out, so the door catches the carcass edge, or the unit is standing on an uneven floor. Check the floor with a spirit level before adjusting the hinges.<\/p>\n Not with screws, as they have no built in adjustment. You either pack behind a hinge leaf with thin card or deepen the recess slightly to change the door position.<\/p>\n The hole has stripped. Remove the screw, glue a slim dowel or matchsticks into the hole, allow it to set, then re drill and refit the screw.<\/p>\n No. They use the same side to side, depth and height adjustments. Some models add a switch to change the closing resistance, which is separate from alignment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Almost any misaligned wardrobe door can be corrected in about ten minutes with one screwdriver, provided you know which screw does what. This guide explains the three adjustments on a standard concealed European hinge: side to side for the gap between doors, depth for how…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":57562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3334],"tags":[5569,5590,5400,5586],"class_list":["post-57560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-how-to-guide-for-your-home","tag-bedroom-diy","tag-door-alignment","tag-furniture-repair","tag-wardrobe-hinges"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57560"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57560\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furnitureinfashion.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Avoiding Alignment Problems From the Start<\/h3>\n
Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3>\n
Which screw adjusts the gap between wardrobe doors?<\/h3>\n
Why does my wardrobe door not close properly?<\/h3>\n
Can butt hinges be adjusted?<\/h3>\n
How do I fix a hinge screw that will not tighten?<\/h3>\n
Do soft close hinges adjust differently?<\/h3>\n