Anybody else's doors sticking? (San Antonio, Anton: home, floor, water bill)

[scuba steve]

It's the strangest thing at my place - the door to one bedroom and its closet are sticking. Guess it started up today or yesterday... Does it have something to do with the weather and the fact that I'm running the furnace (it's at 68) now? It isn't humid indoors.

[Bo]

That's a symptom of foundation shifting. You might need to water yours. Got soaker hoses?

[scuba steve]

I do now... two of them x 25ft ea to do that corner of the house. I'm laying a couple out tonight, 18 inches from the house. Hope to see some results in the morning! The room with the doors that stick now is in an upstairs corner of the house, btw. No signs of anything going on in the brick outside.

edit: hope there's some kind of improvement by tomorrow... I was going to leave it on overnight, check in the morning on my way out to work and then have a look at things after I get home from work.

[Buffyfan]

welcome to San Antonio...your foundation will never be the same!!!

[Paka]

Originally Posted by scuba steve

I do now... two of them x 25ft ea to do that corner of the house. I'm laying a couple out tonight, 18 inches from the house. Hope to see some results in the morning! The room with the doors that stick now is in an upstairs corner of the house, btw. No signs of anything going on in the brick outside.

edit: hope there's some kind of improvement by tomorrow... I was going to leave it on overnight, check in the morning on my way out to work and then have a look at things after I get home from work.

Just be careful with those little soaker hoses...altho they do good work, they CAN run up your water bill very quickly...SAWS said most folks that think they just don't have to monitor the use of something that is a slow drip like that are VERY shocked at their H2O bill because they just turn it on for hours.

[scuba steve]

Cool. Well this morning one of the two doors no longer sticks, and the other isn't as bad as it was last night. We'll see how it looks this evening when I get home... But yeah this still has me pretty freaked out at this point.

[Robhu]

Usualy humidity causes wood to swell, causing sticky doors, windows, etc.
You say it isn't humid indoors. Are you sure?
If it is cool enough for the furnace to come on but is wet enough weather outside it could still be humid inside. It usually takes days of really dry cold weather with the furnace running to lower the humidity in a house. If you are having a cool rainy or damp spell the furnace might not be running enough to cause the loss of humidity in the house. If it's 20 degrees outside and the heat is on a lot then you might have low humidity in the house. Then the wood doors would shrink and open and close without sticking.

[TXtrkgrl]

Originally Posted by Robhu

If it's 20 degrees outside and the heat is on a lot then you might have low humidity in the house. Then the wood doors would shrink and open and close without sticking.

20 degrees??? This is Texas.

[SnappyBob]

Originally Posted by Robhu

Usualy humidity causes wood to swell, causing sticky doors, windows, etc.
You say it isn't humid indoors. Are you sure?
If it is cool enough for the furnace to come on but is wet enough weather outside it could still be humid inside. It usually takes days of really dry cold weather with the furnace running to lower the humidity in a house. If you are having a cool rainy or damp spell the furnace might not be running enough to cause the loss of humidity in the house. If it's 20 degrees outside and the heat is on a lot then you might have low humidity in the house. Then the wood doors would shrink and open and close without sticking.

Wet outside??!!?? How would it get wet......outside???

[scuba steve]

Originally Posted by Robhu

Usualy humidity causes wood to swell, causing sticky doors, windows, etc.
You say it isn't humid indoors. Are you sure?
If it is cool enough for the furnace to come on but is wet enough weather outside it could still be humid inside. It usually takes days of really dry cold weather with the furnace running to lower the humidity in a house. If you are having a cool rainy or damp spell the furnace might not be running enough to cause the loss of humidity in the house. If it's 20 degrees outside and the heat is on a lot then you might have low humidity in the house. Then the wood doors would shrink and open and close without sticking.

I'm not sure when the last time it rained here... it's been that long. I had a closer look at the door frame with my level and the top corner of the door is closer to the frame than the rest (very, very small angle and the part of the frame away from the outer wall is the low end).

Other thing I found out - my roomate that thought there was a ghost said they heard what sounded like the front door slamming on monday morning. That's the same day this problem came up. I think we solved that mystery.

I've been thinking... the exterior brick is 100% fine all the way around and there is nothing on the first floor to suggest anything is going on. Depending on how this goes I'm wondering if it might be a structural engineering issue. But if I wind up calling a foundation company, are the big ones in San Antonio honest enough to say that it's fine if the issue is with something else?