Exterior Door Latch Stuck

There s one piece of good news if you have a stuck latch that won t let you shut the door.

Exterior door latch stuck.

Of course if it s on an exterior door you ll want to do this when the weather is nice and when it s safe to leave the door unlocked. A handful of things can cause a door latch to get stuck in the open position. There are several different ways a door latch can be stuck. Many of these can be fixed by simply disassembling and reassembling the door knob mechanism.

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. 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. 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. Tighten the hinge screws and then try adjusting.

If it is a metal door and the jamb is wood you will have to address the jamb. A sticking door latch might require some lubrication or it might be jamming against the strike plate on the door jamb. When a door latch doesn t click into position it usually means the latch and the strike plate are out of alignment. On the kwikset locks this looks like two little teeth that the cylinder pushes back.

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. Door lock doesn t latch properly. You should first test the door latch to ensure the latch is sticking inside the door and not due to a misaligned strike plate. You can see where the cylinder entered the dead latch mechanism and pulled the latch back.

Turn the knob to open the door and release the knob slowly. There can be a door latch stuck open or a door latch stuck closed but the reasons for each can vary quite a bit.