basementdoors
In a house built in 1950 there is a door in the basement that the top hinge is connected but the bottom hinge is not attached because the part of the board it was attached to is gone. I do not know what is holding the rest of the board in place, nor do I know what happened to the bottom part of the board.
I also don’t know how to fix it. Here are the photos of it:
Sound as if the door only moderately moves, I typically remove either the top or bottom pin, place it on a flat hard surface, like concrete, whack it with a hammer once or twice, reinsert and door no longer moves.
Easier than rehanging a door, for sure.
If the door resists being closed just as it is almost closed, then you certainly have a hinge problem. I've seen a lot of this particular problem in old houses I've lived in, where it is usually caused by excessive paint thickness on the frame and door edges at the hinge side. These faces meet before the hinges are closed, so when you force the door shut you are actually levering the hinge screws out of the wood. (Don't do that!)
You can see whether this is the problem by looking at the side of the door where the hinges are — if the door and the frame touch before the door is shut, then you have this problem. (Since you mention that there is no clearance on the hinge side, I assume this is the case.) In extreme cases, you will see the hinges lift away from the wood as you force the door shut.
You will need to fix things so that the meeting faces of the hinge plates are flush with (or above) the surface of the door and frame, rather than set below the surface (as depicted in the drawing on the right).
Planing the frame (or door) is certainly one way to do that, but I'm not a real DIYer (I just pay attention to the spaces I live in) so I don't have any experience with which to say which is the right solution. I hope I have helped illustrate the problem.
Best Answer
The wood next to the stone wall rotted.
You have a stone foundation. Those are never perfectly sealed. Moisture got thru and rotted the piece of wood next to the stone. Maybe moisture came thru the wall or maybe up thru the ground.
Remove the door and set it aside. Now you will be looking at the rotten piece of wood attached to the stone wall. Get rid of it. If you want a set up like you had, put a new piece there that is the same size. When you get the old piece out you will see how it was attached to the stone. Maybe there will be some holes in the stone you can use for the new piece. Then put the door back where it was and attach the hinges to the new piece of wood.
It occurs to me that this would be a fine job for that fake plastic wood which will fill the space and receive the hinge from the door, but not rot. Or at least use some wood full of preservatives!