Hinges For Dummy Homeowners

A partially extracted hinge pin

It never ceases to amaze our staffers how much dumbassery the website formerly known as eHow.com managed to pack into its few years on earth. No, wait, a lot of the crap is still there: the owners changed their name (to protect the guilty?) and have simple moved most of the posts into niche websites... sites like HomeSteady.com. That's where we found eHowian Cody Sorensen pretending to be an expert on "How to Loosen Door Hinges."

Sorensen, like so many of his fellow failed "communications" majors, had no idea what he was talking about when he wrote his post. Nevertheless, he gamely trudged on. Cody decided that there are two reasons one might want to "loosen" a door hinge, which is why his post has sections for both. The first is worse, the second has a significant problem. Let's look at "Loosening the Hinges to Remove the Door" first.

What it looks like is that Cody couldn't find instructions for taking off a door, so he figured that it's the same as hanging a door, only backwards. That's why his instructions are,

1. "Open the door until the screws holding the hinge to the door and door casing are fully exposed..."
2. "Slide door shims beneath the door until the door is braced up at three points... Use a hammer to drive the shims under the door."
3. "Loosen the screws in the middle hinges. Unscrew the screws on the door-side hinges first, and then the screws on the door-casing side."
4. "Loosen the screws in the bottom hinge..."
5. "Ask someone to hold the door while you loosen and remove the screws in the top hinge."

Cody, you blithering idiot, someone who actually knew what he was doing would have told you to,

1. Stand on the inside of the closed door.
2. Use a hammer and screwdriver, awl, or nail set to pop out all the hinge pins.
3. Open the latch and pull the door toward you.

There's no need to fiddle with a hanging door, idiot. Take the thing off and remove the hinges later!

Sorensen also botched his second set of instructions, "Loosening a A Door Hinge for Easy Movement." According to Cody,

"...if the hinge pin itself is bound in the hinges an anti-seize lubricant is used to loosen the corrosion or rust binding it. .[sic]"

Demand Media's¹ "style guide" did not allow the use of brand names, which is why Cody calls WD-40 an "anti-seize corrosion solvent spray." Except, of course, that's not what WD-40 is, and people who know what they're doing² don't spray the stuff on hinges. For one, it's messy, for two, it's a poor lubricant. People who know what they're talking about say to pop the hinge pins, one at a time, while the door is closed. Clean the pin and give it a light coating of white lithium grease before replacing it. If you don't have white lithium grease, petroleum jelly works almost as well.

Or, you could be a Dumbass of the Day like Cody, and spray WD-40 all over the doorjamb. Yup, that's the ticket...

¹ Demand Media (DMS) was the parent company of eHow.com before they changed their name and went niche-happy.
² Which is quite probably why Cody couldn't find a reference telling him to use WD-40... errr, "anti-seize corrosion solvent spray."

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