Door Repair & Lock Installation in NYC
Doors that stick, sag, squeak, slam, or wear a dent from the last tenant: filled, planed, re-hinged, and closing with that satisfying click by the time I leave.
· often same or next day · exact quote from a photo, before the visit · minimum $130
How Do You Get Door Dings and Dents Out?
Most door dings are cosmetic, and cosmetic is fixable in one visit, from $130. The dent gets cleaned, filled, sanded flush, spot-primed, and painted back to invisible. Dents in solid wood often steam out first, so there’s barely anything left to fill. Split skins, delaminated panels, and warped slabs get replaced instead.
Looking for car door dings? Wrong shop. That’s paintless dent repair at an auto body place, a different trade with different tools. I work on the doors inside your building: apartment entry doors, bedroom and bathroom doors, closet doors, and the frames they hang in.
The Fix Depends on What the Door Is Made Of
- Hollow-core interior doors. Most bedroom and closet doors built after 1960: a thin skin over a cardboard honeycomb. A dent that hasn’t split the skin fills and sands flat. A knob-sized hole punched through it gets a backer set inside the cavity, filler over that, then sand, prime, paint. Nobody finds the spot afterward.
- Solid wood doors. Prewar apartments and brownstones are full of them, and they’re worth saving. If the grain is only crushed, not torn, steam brings the fibers back up: the finish comes off that patch first, then goes back on after. Whatever’s left is filled and touched up.
- Veneer and MDF slabs. Veneer that lifted can be re-glued when the chip is still around. Missing veneer means a patch you can find if you go looking for it, and I’ll say that before I start rather than after.
- Steel entry doors. Shallow dents take body filler, sanded, primed, painted. Honest limit: cutting or patching a hole through a fire-rated apartment door isn’t a handyman repair, and in most co-ops and condos that door belongs to the building, not to you.
- Chewed, scratched, kicked-in bottom rails. Dogs, vacuums, boots. Either fill and repaint, or cap the whole area with a kick plate, which is often the smarter call on a door that keeps taking hits.
Getting a Ding Out, Step by Step
Want to try it yourself first? Here’s the actual method, no secrets:
- Clean it. Scrape loose splinters and dust out. Filler over dust is a patch that pops later.
- Steam the wood dents. Solid wood only, crushed grain only: damp cotton cloth on the dent, hot iron on the cloth, a few seconds at a time. The moisture swells the fibers back. This does nothing for a hollow-core skin or torn grain.
- Fill. Two-part filler for deep chips (it kicks hard in about half an hour), lightweight spackle or wood filler for hairline dings. Slightly proud, never sunken.
- Sand flush and feather it out past the edge of the patch, so raking light doesn’t outline your repair from across the room.
- Spot-prime. Bare filler drinks paint and dries dull. Skip this step and the patch shows up as a matte ghost in the finish.
- Paint. On a painted door, match the sheen as carefully as the color. On a stained door, tinted filler or a wax stick gets close, and I’ll tell you honestly when close is as good as it gets.
Most doors are done and dry in one visit. A deep fill on a stained door sometimes wants a second pass, and I’ll say so when I quote it, not when I’m packing up.
What Door Ding Repair Costs
| Damage | What I do | From |
|---|---|---|
| Ding or shallow dent | Fill, sand, prime, paint | $130 |
| Dent in solid wood | Steam it back, fill, refinish | $130 |
| Hole through a hollow-core door | Backer, filler, sanded, painted | $130 |
| Scratched or chewed bottom rail | Fill and paint, or a kick plate | $130 |
| Cosmetic dent in a steel door | Body filler, primed, painted | $130 |
| Warped, delaminated, water-swollen | New slab hung in your frame | $130 |
Materials extra, minimum visit $130, and if the whole door wants repainting after the repair, that’s painting from $150. Odd combinations get quoted by time at $75–95/hour, agreed before I start.
Looking for door ding repair near you: I cover Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, evenings and Sundays included, and dents are usually a same or next day job because nothing needs to cure overnight.
What’s Included in a Door Repair Visit
A door that won’t close is almost never a mystery. The visit goes like this:
- Diagnose first. I check the hinges, the gaps top and bottom, the strike plate, and the frame before touching a tool. Fixing the wrong thing is how doors end up planed into trapezoids.
- Hinges before wood. Loose or worn hinges cause most sagging doors. Tightening, upsizing screws into solid framing, or swapping hinges often fixes it without removing any wood, from $130.
- Planing when it’s actually the wood. Swollen or rubbing edges get planed just enough, then sealed: bare planed wood in a humid NYC summer swells right back.
- Strike plates and latches adjusted so the door doesn’t just close, it latches. That click is the whole point.
- Cleanup included. Wood shavings, sawdust, old hardware: all gone when I am.
Also in scope: squeaky hinges, doors that swing open on their own, bifold and sliding closet doors off track, door stops, weatherstripping, and privacy locks for bedrooms and bathrooms. If the drama around the door left dents in the wall, drywall patch + paint is from $140.
- Door planing / hinge repair from $130
- Lockset / deadbolt replacement from $130
Flat rates, quoted exactly from a photo before the visit. Minimum visit $130, materials extra. Full rate card →
Quick answers
How much does door repair cost in NYC?
Door planing or hinge repair is from $130 flat. A new lockset installed is from $130. Bigger jobs run $75–95/hour, quoted flat from photos before I visit. Minimum visit is $130.
How do you repair door dings and dents?
Clean the damage, fill it, sand it flush, spot-prime, then paint. On a solid wood door, a dent with no torn grain often steams out first: damp cloth, hot iron, and the crushed fibers swell back. Most ding repairs are one visit, from $130.
Can a dented hollow-core door be repaired, or do I need a new one?
Repaired, if the face is intact or the hole is smaller than a fist: a backer goes in the cavity, filler over it, then sand, prime, paint. Replace when the skin is delaminating, the slab is warped, or the bottom drank water. Hanging a replacement slab you buy in the existing frame is from $130.
Do you repair car door dings?
No. Car dings are paintless dent repair at an auto body shop, a completely different trade. I work on the doors inside your building: apartment entry doors, bedroom and closet doors, and the frames they hang in.
Can you fix a dent in my apartment's steel entry door?
The cosmetic part, yes: shallow dents get filled, sanded, primed, and painted, from $130. What I won't do is cut or patch a hole through a fire-rated entry door, and in most co-ops and condos that door belongs to the building anyway. I'll tell you when it's a management question instead of a handyman one.
Why won't my door close anymore?
Usually one of three things: humidity swelled the wood, the hinges loosened and the door sagged, or the building settled and the frame shifted. All three are fixable in one visit. Send me a photo of the gap and I can usually tell you which it is.
My sliding closet door came off the track. Can it be fixed, or do I need a new door?
Fixed, in almost every case. Off-track sliding doors come down to worn rollers, a bent top track, or a missing floor guide, and all three are standard hardware. It's a door repair visit from $130 plus parts, usually done in one trip. A new door only makes sense if the panel is warped or the mirror is broken. Send a photo of the top track and I'll tell you which one you're dealing with.
Do you repair bifold and mirrored closet doors?
Yes. Bifolds usually need a new top pivot, a pin reseated, or the bottom bracket re-anchored so the panels fold flat again. Mirrored doors are heavier, so I handle them by the frame instead of the glass and keep them flat while I work on the track. Both are door repair, from $130. The one thing I can't repair is cracked mirror glass: that panel needs replacing.
Can you install a new lock, or do I need a locksmith?
I install locksets, deadbolts, and smart locks in existing doors from $130. If you're locked out, need a lock picked open, or need keys made, that's a locksmith. I'll say so honestly instead of billing you to find out.
Can you fix a door in a rental without the landlord noticing anything?
Yes: hinge tightening, planing, and hardware swaps are invisible fixes. If I plane an edge, I seal it so it doesn't drink humidity and swell again. I can also keep your old lockset so you can reinstall it at move-out.
Do you work Sundays and evenings?
Yes, at the same rates. A bedroom door that stopped closing does not respect business hours.
The full guide: Doors & Locks in NYC
Door repair in NYC costs from $130 flat: that covers planing a sticking door, repairing sagging hinges, or filling and painting out a dent so the door looks and closes right again. A new lockset installed is from $130. I quote flat from photos before the visit, work evenings and Sundays, and clean up the shavings before I go.
Text me a photo of the door and the gap (or lack of one), and you’ll get a real price back from me (the person actually showing up) usually within the hour.
Closet Door Repair NYC: Sliding, Bifold, and Off Track
A closet door that jumped its track is usually a repair, not a replacement: worn rollers, a bent top track, or a missing floor guide cause nearly all of it, and each one is a same-visit fix. That’s a door repair visit, from $130 plus parts, and I can usually name the part you need from a photo before I drive over.
Sliding (bypass) doors. The panels hang from rollers riding in a top track, and a small guide screwed to the floor keeps the bottoms from swinging past each other. Three things break. Rollers flatten or seize, so the door drags and hops out. The top track gets bent, usually the afternoon somebody yanked a stuck door. Or the floor guide snaps off and the bottom of the panel wanders. The fix: lift the panels out, new rollers in, straighten and re-anchor the track, set a new guide, then dial the roller height so both doors hang plumb and pass each other without rubbing. If the track is kinked past straightening, track replacement is still the same visit: it’s a stock part in standard lengths.
Bifold doors. These ride on a pivot pin top and bottom, with a guide wheel running in the track. What actually fails: the spring in the top pivot wears out, the bottom bracket works loose in the jamb, or the pin pops out of its bracket and the panel hangs off one corner and scrapes the frame. Pivots, pins, brackets, and the hinges between panels are cheap, standard hardware. Once they’re in, I square the panels so they fold flat and the door closes without a shove.
Mirrored doors. Heavier and less forgiving. A mirrored bypass door is a sheet of glass in a thin aluminum frame: lift it wrong and the frame racks or the glass carries the load. I take these out flat, work the track with the panel supported, and set them back holding the frame, never the mirror. Honest limit: cracked glass or peeling backing means a new panel, not a repair. If what you actually want is a big mirror on the wall rather than on a door, that’s heavy mirror hanging, from $130.
Repair or replace? Repair wins when the panel is straight, the frame is square, and the hardware is a standard size, which covers most closet doors in this city. Replace when the panel is warped or delaminating, the frame is bent, or the mirror is broken. Rollers, pivots, and guides are stock items at any hardware store, so repairing beats buying new doors on price most of the time. If the panel really is finished, I’ll hang the replacement set you buy in the existing opening, from $130; if the opening needs new track and jamb work, that runs $75–95/hour, quoted flat from photos first.
I do these across Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, evenings and Sundays included. Text me a photo of the door, the top track, and the bottom of the panel, and you’ll know what it needs before I show up.
Lock Installation NYC: What I Install
From $130 I’ll install or replace a lockset or deadbolt in an existing door: knobs, levers, keyed deadbolts, the works. Upgrading to a keypad or app-controlled lock? Smart lock installation is from $130, and I’ll make sure it actually fits your door’s backset and your building’s fire-rated door rules before you buy the wrong one. Renters: keep the old lockset in a drawer and I’ll swap it back at move-out, a very renter-friendly two-visit trick.
Heads up for apartment dwellers: many leases and most co-ops require that management keeps a key or that you use approved lock types on the entry door. Worth a quick email to your management before changing an entry lock. I’ll flag it if your building type suggests it.
Why NYC Doors Misbehave
New York is hard on doors. Prewar buildings and brownstones settle for a century and their frames go quietly out of square. Steam heat cooks doors bone-dry in January; July humidity swells them shut. Walk-ups get decades of paint layers. I’ve met doors wearing so much paint the hinges gave up out of principle. And original solid-wood prewar doors are worth saving: they’re heavier and better than anything the big-box store sells, so I repair them rather than talk you into replacement.
Building rules are part of the job here too. Co-ops and condos often have their own paperwork and work-hour windows. Tell me what your building needs and I’ll plan around it. Fourth-floor walk-up? The plane and the toolbox make the climb with me.
What I Don’t Do (Honestly)
- Locksmith work. Lockouts, picking locks open, rekeying cylinders, cutting keys: call a licensed locksmith. I install hardware into doors that open.
- Fire-rated entry door replacement. Swapping the actual apartment entry door in a multifamily building involves fire codes and building sign-off. Repairs and hardware on that door, yes; replacing the door itself, no.
- Structural frame problems. If a frame moved because the building is moving, that’s beyond a handyman visit, and I’ll say so instead of selling you a fix that won’t hold.
- Full door replacement with new frame. That’s a carpentry job I’ll refer out rather than half-do.
Prices (Flat, From)
- Door planing or hinge repair: from $130
- Ding, dent, or chip filled and painted out: from $130
- Closet door back on track (rollers, guides, pivots): from $130
- Lockset installed: from $130
- Smart lock or video doorbell: from $130
- Drywall patch + paint (doorknob holes): from $140
- Dimmer/outlet swap while I’m there: from $130 (minor electrical)
- Other work: $75–95/hour, flat quote from photos
- Minimum visit: $130. Materials extra.
Full list on the pricing page. The quote is the price: no discovering “additional issues” at your expense.
Why Booking Us Directly Beats an App
Book a platform and the algorithm sends you a stranger. Text me and you get the same person every time: the one who quoted it, the one who fixes it, the one who picks up when you call in October because the heat came on and a different door started sticking. 5.0★ across 67 Google reviews, evenings and Sundays, often bookable same day.
You can flip through 16 repair, door, and lock jobs in the work gallery, before and after.
Send a photo of the door. Get your flat quote.