Exterior Door Latch Stuck

You should first test the door latch to ensure the latch is sticking inside the door and not due to a misaligned strike plate.

Exterior door latch stuck.

Tighten the hinge screws and then try adjusting. When a door latch doesn t click into position it usually means the latch and the strike plate are out of alignment. There can be a door latch stuck open or a door latch stuck closed but the reasons for each can vary quite a bit. Door lock doesn t latch properly.

If it is a metal door and the jamb is wood you will have to address the jamb. With the door latch stuck you want to know how to fix the issue but in order to do that you must find out the reason it is stuck. You can see where the cylinder entered the dead latch mechanism and pulled the latch back. How can i unstick the bottom of an exterior door that got stuck due to weather.

On the kwikset locks this looks like two little teeth that the cylinder pushes back. Turn the knob to open the door and release the knob slowly. Depending on the material the door is made of metal wood etc a wooden door can be removed and planed in the area that is causing the sticking. Once you have the door handle off you can now try to open the latch manually with either a large flathead screwdriver or pair of needle nose pliers.

Sometimes the lock button being stuck is endemic of the latch bolt freezing so you might not be able to take advantage of spring loaded latch through the gap between the door and the frame. Taking the lock of the door is often simpler than it would be to take a deadbolt or exterior door knob lock of the door. At least it s not a stuck latch that won t let you open the door. Many of these can be fixed by simply disassembling and reassembling the door knob mechanism.

A sticking door latch might require some lubrication or it might be jamming against the strike plate on the door jamb. There are several different ways a door latch can be stuck.