Door Installation & Repair in Philadelphia, PA

Humid summers and freeze and thaw winters are hard on brick, on flat roofs and on every joint that was never sealed properly. Philadelphia is a rowhouse city. Shared walls, flat roofs and old brick mean the work has to be done with the neighbors in mind and the water managed carefully. R&L Contractor has been handling door installation & repair for homes in Philadelphia for more than twenty-five years, and that experience is what tells us where a house here tends to fail first.

A door is three things at once and it usually gets judged as one. It is the security of your home, the seal against the weather, and the first thing anyone touches when they arrive. Most doors are bought for the third and fail at the first two.

R&L Contractor has been hanging and repairing doors across Philadelphia for more than twenty-five years: entry doors, interior doors, patio and sliding units, and the frames that decide whether any of them work.

The Frame Matters More Than the Door

Kick tests do not fail on the door slab. They fail at the jamb, where a strike plate is held by three quarter inch screws into soft trim instead of long screws into the framing behind it. A beautiful, solid entry door in a weak frame gives you the feeling of security without the fact of it.

So when we install an entry door, we reinforce the strike, we screw into structure, and we make sure the deadbolt throws fully into a solid catch rather than nicking the edge of a hole that was drilled a half inch off.

Hung Square, or Not Hung at All

Houses settle. Openings go out of square, and a door forced into a crooked opening will bind, drag and stop latching within a season. Setting a door plumb and square, shimming it correctly, and adjusting the reveal all the way around is the whole craft, and it is why some doors still swing perfectly after twenty years while others need a shove.

Drafts and the Weather Seal

Most of the cold air coming through your entry door is not coming through the door. It is coming around it: through a threshold that no longer meets the sweep, weatherstripping that has hardened, or a frame that was never sealed to the wall properly.

That is fixable, and often without replacing anything. We will tell you when a repair is all you need, even though a replacement would be the larger sale.

Patio and Sliding Doors

Big glass openings bring the yard into the house and, installed carelessly, bring the water in with it. The sill is the vulnerable point, and flashing it correctly is what keeps a beautiful door from rotting the floor under it.

Free assessment, honest pricing in writing, one crew from removal to hardware. Let us look at your doors.

Interior Doors Matter Too

Interior doors get ignored until every one of them sticks, rattles or refuses to stay closed. Replacing or rehanging them is a small project with a daily payoff, because it is something you touch a dozen times a day.

Free assessment, honest pricing in writing, and licensed crews across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Permits and Paperwork in Philadelphia

When the job needs a permit, we pull it through the Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections, so the work passes inspection and stays legal at resale. Free estimate, honest written pricing, and one licensed crew serving Philadelphia and the surrounding neighborhoods.