Butler doors allow servers to carry items in and of a kitchen without turning a door handle or manually shut the door. To open the door, servers use kick plates at the bottom or thrust plates at handle height. The key component of hardwood and painted butler doors are double-action spring hinges that swing the door closed after it’s opened in either direction. A butler door that’s badly warped or split must be replaced. Generally, if the door rubs on the jamb or the ground, it may be repaired by attending to the hinges.
Open the door and fasten it using a doorstop firmly wedged under the outer edge. Use a screwdriver to tighten the screws where each of those double-action hinge plates lay in the face of the doorjamb and at the corresponding edge of the door.
Remove the doorstop and swing the door each way many times. If it continues to rub the jamb or ground at the push-plate side, at least one of those screws in the door or doorjamb are stripped. Generally, a screw strips at the doorjamb since the jamb supports the weight of the door through its variety of movement.
Open the door and stabilize it using the doorstop. Install a magnetic screw-tip attachment in a power or cordless drill. Use moderate pressure on the drill to locate the screws that spin and won’t tighten. Use the directional selector on the drill to undo the drill’s spinning, and eliminate a loose screw with the support of this magnetic screw-tip attachment. Save the screw.
Cut a 2-inch-long, tapered wooden filler from a random block of pine or spruce with a utility knife. The filler should be 1/4-inch broad at one end and taper to a point.
Squeeze a small quantity of wood glue in a bottle to the hole where the screw was removed. Install the point of the wooden rubbed though the hole in the hinge and to the jamb. Tap the outer finish with a hammer to match the stitch securely into position. Cut off the surplus even with the face of the hinge. To try it, score around the foundation of the filler in which it meets the face of the hinge using the knife, and break off the surplus using the hammer.
Select “Forward” on the drill’s directional switch. Use moderate pressure on the drill to make a countersink for the screw at the outer finish of this wooden filler, using the tip of this screw-tip attachment. Reinstall the saved screw and securely tighten it.
Repeat the process to install tapered wood fillers in which additional hinge screws are stripped at the doorjamb or at the corresponding edge of the door.