How to fix a door handle: Get rid of the wobbly

Because that wobbly feeling doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in your home’s security, knowing how to fix a door handle is an essential skill to have. With UniBond’s simple guide, you’ll quickly get a handle on it. 

Fix a door handle: What causes them to loosen?

As they are used day in, day out, a wobbly door handle is something of a regular occurrence. When you feel one start to loosen, it’s always best to fix it before the problem gets any worse. But what are the causes in the first place?

• Often, the screws in the door handle or knob mechanism become loose over time and require tightening.
• In older mechanisms, dust and dirt can impede the normal operation of the handle and need to be cleaned off.
• A screw in the door plate – which keeps the door handle or knob and mechanism attached to the door – might have come loose or broken.

Fix a door knob: How it’s done

If you’ve felt the handle starting the get wobbly, the good news is that learning how to fix a door knob is very easy. Simply follow these steps.

1. Remove. If you can’t see a loose or broken screw in the door plate that needs tightening or replacing, you’ll need to remove the handle to expose the mechanism behind.

• For an exposed set-screw door handle, simply use a screwdriver to remove the screws, which will in turn enable you to remove the door handle or knob.
• If it’s a hidden screw door handle, locate the detent – a spring-loaded pin that sticks out of the handle or knob – and its access hole and press down on the detent with a flathead screwdriver to remove the handle from the spindle shaft.

2. Pry. Now you’ll need to remove the base. With a flathead screwdriver, gently pry the ring loose, taking care to avoid any damage to the backing plate.

3. Tighten. With the base removed, you should now be able to see a set of screws, each of which runs through the door from the inside backing plate into the outside backing plate to hold the mechanism together. Whilst holding the back plate down to keep it in place, tighten these screws.

4. Reassemble. Clip the base back into place on top of the backing plate. Now put the handle or knob back onto the spindle shaft and screw it back in place (if it’s an exposed set-screw handle) or line up the detent with its access hole and click it back into place (if it’s a hidden screw handle).

To provide further resistance to the everyday wear and tear, apply high strength glue to the screws in the door plate and backing plate. Simply unscrew, wipe off any dust or dirt and apply a thin bead of glue around each one before screwing back into place.