Door repair · 24/7 · Greater Manchester
Nine times out of ten, the door is fixable.
Get a price in 2 minutes
Tell us what's happened. We ring you straight back with a fixed price.
- From £25
- Repair before replace
- 24/7, no call-out fee
- 12-month warranty
- £1m public liability
Almost every door we are called to has already been quoted for replacement by somebody. Most of them did not need replacing. A door that sticks, drags, will not lock or has a handle that droops is nearly always a £35 alignment or a £60 mechanism, not a £900 door.
Start here: is it the lock or the door?
This one distinction decides everything, and it is easy to get wrong.
| Symptom | Usually | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Key turns fine, door won't close | Door dropped, hinges worn | £35-65 |
| Handle needs lifting hard | Multipoint gearbox binding | £45-85 |
| Handle spins, nothing happens | Gearbox sheared | £60-120 |
| Handle droops | Return spring or gearbox | £25-50 |
| Key won't turn, door fine | Cylinder worn or dirty | £35-60 |
| Locks but rattles | Keeps need adjusting | £35-65 |
| Draught round the edge | Compression gone. Keeps. | £35-65 |
| Frame split at the keep | Kicked. Timber gave, not the lock. | £90-180 |
Notice how many of those are £35-65. Adjustment, not parts. Half of what looks like a broken door is a door that moved.
Alignment: the thing nobody sells you
A door swings tens of thousands of times. The hinges wear. The slab drops two or three millimetres, which you cannot see and can absolutely feel. Now the hooks meet the edge of the keeps instead of sliding in, so you lift harder, and the gearbox takes a beating it was never meant to take.
Fixing the alignment is often the whole repair. It is also why fitting a new gearbox without realigning the door is money wasted: the new one starts dying the same day, for the same reason. See multipoint locks.
What we repair
Multipoint gearboxes
uPVC and composite. The most common door failure in Manchester by a distance.
Handles and springs
Drooping handles, spindles that spin, return springs gone.
Hinges and alignment
Dropped doors, dragging doors, doors that need a shoulder.
Frames and keeps
Split frames after a forced entry, keeps that no longer line up.
Cylinders and mortices
The lock itself. See lock repair.
Emergency
24 hours, same price. Door won't lock and you cannot leave the house.
When we say replace
We would rather tell you than take your money twice:
- uPVC panel cracked or blown
- Timber rotted through at the bottom rail
- Frame twisted, not just split
- Composite slab delaminating
- Third gearbox in two years: the door is the problem
And an honest limit: we fit and repair door hardware. We do not hang new doors. That is joinery and we are not the best people for it. If yours genuinely needs replacing we will say so and you will need a joiner.
uPVC doors specifically
If the door itself needs work rather than the lock, hinges, glazing units, panels, we run a separate business for it at upvcdoorfixers.co.uk. Lock and mechanism work stays here.
Lock repair · uPVC door locks · Burglary repair · Commercial doors
Questions people actually ask
My door won't close properly. Is that the lock or the door?
Almost certainly the door. If the key turns fine in your hand but the door will not close or needs a shoulder, the slab has dropped a few millimetres because the hinges have worn, and the latch or hooks are now meeting the edge of the keeps rather than entering them. That is an alignment job at £35 to £65 and it takes half an hour. Buying a new lock fixes nothing, because the lock was never the problem. This is the single most common misdiagnosis we see.
How much does door repair cost in Manchester?
Most door repairs fall between £25 and £120. Realignment, which covers hinges and keeps, is £35 to £65. A handle or return spring is £25 to £50. A multipoint service is £45 to £85. A gearbox replacement is £60 to £120. A frame repair after a forced entry is £90 to £180. There is no call-out fee, the price is fixed before we start, and it does not change at night or at weekends.
Do I need a new door or can this be fixed?
Fixed, nine times out of ten, and almost every door we attend has already been quoted for replacement by somebody. Sticking, dragging, not locking, or a drooping handle are all repairs. Genuine replacement is needed when a uPVC panel has cracked or blown, when timber has rotted through at the bottom rail, when the frame is twisted rather than just split, or when a composite slab is delaminating. If you are on your third gearbox in two years, the door itself is the problem and we will say so.
Do you fit new doors?
No, and we would rather be straight about that. We repair and fit door hardware: locks, gearboxes, cylinders, handles, hinges, keeps and frame repairs. Hanging a new door is joinery, it is a different trade, and we are not the best people for it. If yours genuinely needs replacing we will tell you and you will want a joiner. If the door itself needs work rather than the lock, glazing units, panels, that sort of thing, we run a separate business for it at upvcdoorfixers.co.uk.
Why did my new gearbox fail so quickly?
Because whoever fitted it did not realign the door. A multipoint gearbox almost never fails on its own: it fails because the door dropped and the hooks started binding against the keeps, so the gearbox was forcing metal past metal on every lift. Replace the gearbox and leave the geometry alone and the new one starts dying the same day for exactly the same reason. Realignment is the actual repair. The gearbox is just the part that broke first.
My frame is split where the lock goes in. Is the lock still any good?
Usually yes, and this is worth knowing because it changes what you are quoted. In a forced entry the timber almost always gives before the lock does: the frame splits at the keep and the lock itself comes out intact. So you are buying a frame repair at £90 to £180, not a new lock. A good lock in a soft frame is still a soft frame, which is why we reinforce the keep with long screws into the structural stud rather than the 20mm ones that come in the box.