Hanging doors from scratch

[Robert Z]

For you guys that hang a lot of doors...

I remember my Grandfather telling me about a carpenter that he sold material to in the 50's in Omaha, NE (Grandpa spent his career with Sutherland Lumber Company-I don't know if they are still in business in the Mid West). Grandpa said this carpenter was a legend in the area and commanded high wages because he could hang a door from scratch and average one per hour, with casing and stop. I think he said this carpenter made something like $5-6 an hour, which was good money for the time (I could be a bit off on that figure).

So, assuming that the job site is well organized with material and there is just one long hallway with a bunch of doors such as a school or a hospital, is this kind of pace possible doing things the "old way"-yankee screw driver, chisels, hand planes, door bench and hand saws? It seems like an incredible pace of production.

[Dick Seibert]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Rob:

That's about right, by the time I made journeyman in the early 50s I was getting about $3 something an hour, my take home in 1957 when my son was born, was $103 per week (plus benefits). At that time I could hang 7 doors per day from scratch in a new home, which was considered average to pretty good at the time. The first pre-hungs I saw were about 1959, and when I questioned why? I was told that a carpenter in the tracts could hang 21 prehung doors per day. About the mid-60s we started getting pre-hungs with metal clips so we could bend one side and nail the doors in without shims, those were pretty flimsy and the idea was that when we cased the doors the 4ds in the jambs and the 6ds in the trimmers (we called trimmers cripples in those days) held the doors in place. There were no clips on exterior doors, the stucco (or brick or 1x4 for siding) mold held them in but we still shimmed behind the butts. The metal clips went away in the later '60s and we started getting prehungs with the casing pre-applied on one side, the casing on the other side was stapled together on the two corners but tacked on for removal, we still didn't shim. That all went away by the early '70s and we started getting prehungs without any clips or pre-applied casing, the casing came separately in bundles.

Carpenters here didn't get $5 an hour until I became a contractor, when they did I was building homes for $6 a foot, my first $10 a foot home didn't come until 1968, and I was proud as Hell to get $10 a foot for a house. I remember sitting on a pile of sheetrock with one of my carpenters in 1969 in a restaurant I was building, they were getting over $7 an hour then, he told me he thought the carpenters really screwed themselves when they went over $5 an hour since the non-union guys would start getting all the work with their $3 an hour wages, I think I agreed with him.

[littlebluetruck]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Impressive, but not impossible.

[David Meiland]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

If they're lightweight interior doors with two hinges, it seems like it might work if you do it week after week. Cut the jamb pieces to length with your handsaw (you know the lengths by heart), use a story stick to layout the hinge locations on the door and jamb, chisel out the mortises, screw in the hinges, nail together the jamb, tack it in the opening, swing the door, shim and nail it off.

Most of us... well OK I'll speak for myself... ME... do this infrequently enough so that we waste a lot of time fumbling around, looking for the right tools, remembering how to do things.

I have hung 15 or so interior doors in a new 2 story house in one day, including reading the plans and moving them from the garage to each opening. All of them were prehung nicely and really just needed shims and nails. I guess if they were already in the house, there were shims with them, and there were air hoses already set up I could get 20+ done. The next day would be less productive.

[Robert Z]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

The reason I thought of this topic the other day was because I was installing a door and a lockset, and even though I have read Gary's excellent door book, and worked a lot with and learned from a buddy who is a trim carpenter, I just don't do enough door installs to get fast.

I'm impressed with all of the door carpenters that can install a door well and do it fast.


Dave, how did you get so lucky as to get 15 prehungs that were all good to use without fighting with them? :)

[Robert Z]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Dick

Dad is here visiting, I just asked him, they lived in Omaha from '54 to '59. I think the number was about $5 an hour because I remember thinking that would be about $10K per year. The cost of living even then in SF must have been more than in Omaha.

BTW, have any of you guys out west heard of Sutherland Lumber? They were based in KC MO, and had yards in all of the midwest and CA. Grandpa worked there from right after he got out of the Army in WW2 up until he retired in the early 80's. I remember visiting my grandparents in Anaheim in the late 60's and early 70's, and riding with Grandpa in the International Harvester Travelall to "his" lumber yard to get some material for his house. Grandpa always wore overalls, with his folding rule in one pocket and a pipe and a pocket knife in another. I have a picture of me at age 5, circa 1970, wearing my overalls like Grandpa and trying to cut some wood in the driveway of his house.

[David Meiland]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

15 prehungs that were all good to use without fighting with them? :)

They came from a shop at the lumberyard I used then. They generally did great work. Up here all of the doors I get prehung come from a door service, meaning my lumberyard calls them and orders the units, and doesn't have their own shop.

[Dick Seibert]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Rob:

It's interesting that trade wages were higher in the Midwest than on the West Coast in those days, I definitely remember my $103 a week take home checks in '57, and I remember having a friend do my taxes showing $7,000 something income a year. Similarly, my grandfather had a new house built in Portland ME in 1923 for $13,000, my parents had a new house built in California in 1940 for $3,500. Funny how California use to be the cheap place, now it's become the expensive place.

[Robert Z]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Dick,

We did a remodel years ago in Arlington County (this is the county where the Pentagon is located) or Alexandria City (I don't remember which), and while tearing out the cabinets we found an invoice for the work done on that job, along with a material list. I gave it to the homewner to keep as a memento, and I wish I had photocpied it first.

I think the work was done in the early 50's, and it was so interesting to see what the unit cost was for some items like trim, lumber and installation of cabinets and doors.

I'm just guessing here, but it was something like doors were ~ $12 a piece and ~$12 for installation. The entire kitchen was installed for several hundred dollars labor. Windows were more than doors, maybe ~$30 or $40. Trim was something like $0.15 a ft.

I could be off on these figures because this was maybe 15 years ago, but you get the idea. It was interesting to see and old bill from work done 40 years before.

Do you still have invoices from work you did in the 60's?

[dave_k]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

So, assuming that the job site is well organized with material and there is just one long hallway with a bunch of doors such as a school or a hospital, is this kind of pace possible doing things the "old way"-yankee screw driver, chisels, hand planes, door bench and hand saws? It seems like an incredible pace of production.

I started out hanging residential doors from scratch without power tools. The real production work I have done is exactly what you are describing. Hanging doors in schools and hospitals from scratch.

By the time I was hanging doors in schools and hospitals we were using power tools but the guys I learned from used to hang doors by the hundreds using hand tools. As an apprentice I had to learn how to plane doors by hand, mortise hinges with a chisel and drill locksets with a brace and bit and do it FAST. If you were such a poor carpenter that you had to get out power tools to hang a couple of doors you would be relegated to sweeping floors and packing doors then transfered to a concrete crew at the first opportunity.

It's hard to really judge how many complete doors you could hang in a day because we used production methods and the methods and crew mix would vary according to the door and frame type. You would fit and swing the doors in an area and come back after paint and drill and install locks and other hardware. In schools and hospitals you rarely get cased openings, maybe occasionally in the office areas. 95% of the time the frames are HM set in block walls in schools or plaster of DW walls in hospitals. Wood doors are easy to disinfect but wood frames and casings are an unnecessary risk.

A pair of carpenters would fit and swing 3 doors an hour using power tools. You would have the odd good day, or bad day but you would have to be pretty good to fit and swing 3 doors an hour consistently. I could see a pair of carpenters doing 2 doors an hour using hand tools at best BUT you have to stop and sharpen your tools maybe a couple of times a day and this would slow you down even further. I would estimate that you would get half the work done all told.

One task that takes considerably more time and effort is undercutting with a handsaw. With a skil saw and a shooter board you can undercut right off the stack. With a good quality blade you only have to score the top and one edge so you can cut, seal and stack the doors on edge ready to go for the next operation. A strong carpenter can do this alone if he has to. If you undercut with a handsaw you have to get the door on horses, score one side, flip the door, score the other side, then cut the door. That's more than double the time for each door, maybe 20 minutes a door. A pair of carpenters can cut a lift of 50 doors in an hour and a half with a Festool saw if the conditions are right.

You can't look at a question like this without taking into account setup, and movement of material. If a carpenter is breaking time records having material fed to him in ideal conditions is it really fair if you don't include the time spent getting and feeding him materials or if he has an apprentice sharpening his tools for him.

All told it takes about 2 man hours to fit, hang and put a lockset and stop on a solid core door in a school or hospital with power tools. Hardware intensive doors take up to 8 man hours. We have all had days or weeks where the stars align and we do it in one man hour but if you average it out it works to 2 hrs a door for a good crew. The GC I trained with used to budget 4 Hrs. per door including exterior doors and egress.

The guys I worked with were very hard working, efficient and worked most of their careers hanging doors with hand tools. I would say that your productivity would be at least half what you get with power tools if your organization was the same.

For residential doors I would say a crew, using production methods. can hang a complete door in an hour. If you had to do it alone it would be one hell of a good day because of the time wasted changing over to different tasks. To stand at an opening and hang and trim an opening with hand tools in an hour. Not a chance.

[Dick Seibert]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

Dave:

I could get 7 a day using only hand tools, that's about 1 hr 10 minutes per door, I remember it well. I remember once the boss gave a new lockset to install on the front door, we had previously set the door. It was a Schlage mortise lock and I'd never installed one before, I followed the instructions drilling the door all morning with no guides all with a brace and bit, it took me 7 hours to install one lockset, I thought I was going to get fired over that. After we started getting pre-hungs the mortise locksets were prebored and about a 20 minute job.

I built a supposedly atomic bomb proof control building in an oil refinery once, the exterior doors were pre-hung all right, but they weighed a couple of thousand pounds a piece, we had to balance them on a forklift to get them into place, and keep them in place while we installed them, that was two carpenters and a laborer for about 2 days on each door, I missed the estimate on that one!

[dave_k]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

It was a Schlage mortise lock and I'd never installed one before, I followed the instructions drilling the door all morning with no guides all with a brace and bit, it took me 7 hours to install one lockset,

At least you have the brains to read the instructions. I remember when I was a newly minted journeyman and a newly minted foreman with a brand new shiny white hat. I was in charge of the finishing of a large arena complex we were doing with our own forces.

One of our big concrete supers was between jobs so they assigned him to me. The guy was a legend in the company and terrified me. He was supposed to do a little stress free light duty work for a couple of weeks so the powers that be decided installing door hardware was just the thing.

I gave him some Schlage mortise locks to install on some preped HM doors. He started slow but soon picked up the pace. I didn't dare ask him if he knew what he was doing or check up on him. He came back at the end of the day with a box full of "spare parts" that incluced for some unknown reason an open lock case empty of all it's parts.

Not one lock he installed worked. He didn't see the need of the spindle spring or half the spring cases, cylinder springs or thumb turns. Cylinders weren't locked in place, back to back cylinders were screwed in tight together and half the spring cages were installed backwards so the handles didn't work. (you gotta get half them right).

He was kickplate boy until they shipped him out to another job.

I've never done a door as big as that but I've been burned more than a few times by not paying attention to the details when bidding a job. I compete against some guys on the open shop jobs that have a standard price per door and will price a job based on the number of doors without even looking at the drawings. I take off every piece of hardware and read every word of the schedules and related specs and still get burned. I don't know how they stay in business.


dave

[bread and roses]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

. After we started getting pre-hungs the mortise locksets were prebored and about a 20 minute job.

My boss tells me to aim for 5 minutes per for prebored mortise locks. I can't get there consistently, but I can always average 10 minutes including dealing with the odd defective lock or door that needs to be re-adjusted. I feel like the logistics are most important. Lining the locks up on your cart so you can read the room numbers, having a handy trash box, always aligning the cart the same way, always producing in the same sequence so I'm installing the #3 screws one after the other with the gun with the #3 phillips, then move on to all the #2 with the second gun, etc., is what makes for a fast job.


If I had to install one mortise lock on a prebored door I would expect it to take me 30 minutes at least. If I hadn't installed that exact model recently, I would read the instructions. They're all different, and reading the directions is a lot faster than taking the thing apart, reading the instructions, and installing it again.


They told me in apprenticeship school that the heart of a good door hanger was the hand-eye coordination and craftsmanship of mortising the strike plate and so on. I aced that, but I knew at the time it was not going to be economically important. Oh well.

[Dick Seibert]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

The machinery for the boring of mortise locksets is a huge advantage of the pre-hung shops, 10 to 20 minutes is a lot different from 7 hours for a carpenter with a brace and bit and a chisel! Holding the brace and bit absolutely parallel to the door, then cleaning the mortises out with a chisel is almost an art. If you get off 1/8" at the top of the brace while turning it and you are in big trouble at the bottom of the mortise. It's a crying shame that the trade or "art" of carpentry has been degraded to the level it has.

[dave_k]

Re: Hanging doors from scratch

I feel like the logistics are most important. Lining the locks up on your cart so you can read the room numbers, having a handy trash box, always aligning the cart the same way, always producing in the same sequence so I'm installing the #3 screws one after the other with the gun with the #3 phillips, then move on to all the #2 with the second gun, etc., is what makes for a fast job.

You nailed it buddy. Logistics and organization are the key to making money on hardware. It takes what it takes at the door, how much money is determined by how efficiently you move through the job and how you handle materials. The less mileage the more money.

We go through the hardware boxes at the lockup and get rid of as much packaging and excess fasteners as possible then pre-assemble as much as possible before the hardware goes to the door. Things like attaching closer arms, closer cover plate screws, installing the cylinders in exit device handsets... . Every carpenter has a cart, with as many drills as necessary so as not to have to change drill bits or taps unnecessarily, everyone has a die grinder to adjust function holes and everyone has a garbage can.

I go one step further when it comes to installing locks in areas where there are a lot of typical locks with the same function like in offices. First you drill or route all the function holes. Then I take apart each box in order of installation putting each part or fastener in a separate container. Everything is laid out on my bench so I know exactly where everything is, I have floor and wall stops in a drawer under my bench so I catch them as I go. Other door controls and kicks etc. I do in another pass.

I price a mortise lock at 30 min to install on a pre machined door, it takes me at best 5 min AT THE DOOR You still have to consider the time spent in the hardware room, moving around the site, mobilizing and demobilizing every day, moving from floor to floor, site meetings ... . Then there are the locks in remote locations that take an hour or more to install, rooftop penthouses, sprinkler room, mechanical rooms. You have to go, go, go on the easy ones to make up for those.