A door that will not lock is tonight’s problem

Usually the lock is fine and something around it moved. A door that latched last year and doesn't now has normally dropped on its hinges, swollen with humidity, or shifted because the frame did. We check the door, the jamb and the strike plate before anyone talks about buying new hardware. Hampton Roads humidity on its own will swell a wood door enough to stop it latching in July, then let it latch again in November. That's a planing and hardware job, not a new door.

• Deadbolt won't throw, or you have to lift the door up to lock it
• Door latches fine in winter and sticks shut every summer
• Latch and strike plate no longer line up on the jamb
• Hinge screws pulling out, or a door sagging at the top corner
• Door dragging on the threshold, the tile or the carpet
• Daylight visible at the top, bottom or hinge side of a closed door
• Weatherstripping flattened, torn or missing altogether
• A front door that won't stay shut and swings open on its own

Replace when the frame is rotted, the sash is broken, or the sealed glass has failed in a frame too old to be worth saving. Repair when the frame is sound and only the balance, the hardware or the glass has gone. Window replacement in Virginia Beach tends to get quoted as a whole-house project, and sometimes that's the honest answer. Often it isn't, and three bad openings on the weather side are the entire problem. We'll tell you which one you've got before you start pricing a full set.

• Fogged or cloudy glass you can't wipe clean (the seal between the panes has failed)
• Sash that won't stay up and drops as soon as you let go
• Window painted or swollen shut that hasn't opened in years
• Soft, spongy or rotted wood at the sill and the bottom rail
• Single-pane windows in a room you can feel from across the floor
• Cracked pane, chipped glass, or a window that took a rock off the mower
• Crank casement windows that no longer close tight enough to lock
• Old aluminum frames that sweat and drip onto the sill all winter
• One opening, one room, or the whole house, quoted the same way

It depends on your exact address, not on which city you're in. Parts of coastal Virginia sit inside a wind-borne debris zone where the building code requires window openings to be protected, and the boundary follows a wind-speed map rather than a city line. Your local permit office is the one who confirms which side of it your house is on. If you're inside it, the code accepts either impact-rated glazing or approved shutters and panels over the opening. Ask before you buy. Windows chosen on price alone can fail an inspection in the wrong zip code, and swapping them afterwards costs far more than getting it right the first time.

• Impact-rated laminated glass for openings inside the wind-borne debris zone
• Approved storm shutters or panels as the other way to meet the same requirement
• Storm door installation over an existing entry door
• Storm windows over original sash in an older home you don't want to alter
• Checking what your city requires for a window swap before anything is ordered
• Paperwork on what was installed, for your insurer or your next buyer

Almost always the rollers are worn out or the track is packed with grit. A slider carries its whole weight on two small wheels, and sand and salt air in Hampton Roads grind through them faster than they do inland. New rollers and a cleaned, capped or replaced track fix most of them in one visit. If the panel has dropped out of square or the frame itself is bent, that's a bigger conversation and we'll say so rather than charge you for rollers twice.

• Slider that jumps the track or lifts out at one corner
• Patio door that won't lock because the latch and the keeper don't meet
• Rollers replaced, track cleaned, capped or swapped out
• Sliding screen door that falls out whenever the dog leans on it
• Torn screens rescreened, and new screens built for odd openings
• Fogged or cracked glass in one panel of a slider
• French doors that no longer close together in the middle
• Sliding door handles and locks that turn but don't catch

We hang exterior and interior doors, and we do the parts of the job people forget about. That means the threshold, the sweep, the weatherstripping and the trim that has to go back on afterwards and look right. A front door that's been kicked, swollen, or drilled for three different locks over the years is usually a replacement rather than a repair. If the frame is still square and solid, a slab into the existing frame saves you real money.

• New exterior entry door, prehung or as a slab into the existing frame
• Interior doors hung, trimmed out and hardware set
• Bifold, closet and pocket doors that keep jumping the track
• Deadbolt, handleset and smart lock swaps at existing bores
• Thresholds, door sweeps and weatherstripping replaced
• Door frames and jambs rebuilt after a forced entry
• Pet doors, and door bottoms chewed or scratched through
• Rotted exterior trim and brickmould around the opening

Then the paint around your windows may contain lead, and window replacement is one of the jobs most likely to disturb it. Federal rules govern how that work is carried out in pre-1978 homes, covering containment, cleanup and a written record for the homeowner. This matters a lot here. Norfolk, Portsmouth and Hampton carry a great deal of pre-1978 housing, and so do South Jersey and Delaware County. Ask us about it directly before an older window job starts, and ask any other contractor bidding the same work.

• We ask the age of the house before quoting a window job
• Testing or presuming lead paint on pre-1978 window openings
• Containment and cleanup that keeps dust out of the rest of the house
• A written record of what was done, which matters when you sell

Virginia Beach is the largest part of the Hampton Roads market and where most of these calls come from. We also cover Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth and Suffolk. What breaks changes as you move across the region. Norfolk and Portsmouth homes are older on average, so it's rotted sills, painted-shut sash and original wood frames. Chesapeake and Suffolk homes are newer, so it's failed seals, vinyl frames and sliders that have run out of rollers. Outside Virginia we work across South Jersey and Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

• Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Newport News
• Hampton, Portsmouth and Suffolk
• South Jersey, including Cherry Hill and the surrounding Camden County towns
• Delaware County, Pennsylvania, including Media and Havertown
• Which services run in which market can differ, so it's worth asking when you call