Humidity or movement?
Timber doors swell. In humid months a solid door takes on moisture and grows a millimetre or two — enough to bind against the jamb — then shrinks and frees itself as the weather dries. This is the single most over-interpreted symptom in the foundation world, because the sticking is real, the frustration is real, and a contractor pointing at the stumps sounds plausible. The honest test is the calendar: a door that binds every summer or every wet autumn and frees up in between is breathing with the weather. A door that sticks progressively worse regardless of season — and especially one that needed the latch moved, then trimming, then still binds — is telling you the frame around it has changed shape. Frames only change shape when the structure holding them moves.
The out-of-square test
Two minutes with a tape measure separates the cases. Measure the door frame corner-to-corner along both diagonals: on a square frame the two figures match within a couple of millimetres. A frame that's been racked by movement gives diagonals that differ noticeably — 5 mm or more is meaningful. Then look at the gap along the top of the door with it closed: an even gap means the frame is square and the door itself is the problem; a gap that tapers from one end to the other means the frame has been pushed out of parallelogram. Wedge-shaped gaps and latches that no longer meet their strike plate point the same way. Write the diagonal measurements down with the date — repeated in six months, they turn an impression into evidence.
What the door's position tells you
If the frame really is out of square, its position maps roughly onto the stumps at fault. Doors and windows binding along one external wall implicate the perimeter stumps on that side — often the wet side, near a failed gutter or downpipe. A cluster in one corner points at that corner settling. An internal door mid-house, especially in a hallway, points at internal stumps, which carry more load than most owners expect and are the last to get looked at. Several doors along one line, all leaning the same way, is the pattern that deserves attention; one random door in an otherwise tight house usually isn't.
When it's the door, not the house
Before anyone quotes you thousands, spend ten minutes on the cheap explanations. Hinge screws work loose and let the door sag — tightening them, or swapping one screw per hinge for a longer one that bites the stud, fixes a surprising share of "structural" doors. Decades of paint build up on the door edge and jamb until the clearance is gone. Doors swell along the bottom edge where they were never sealed. And a door that was trimmed to fit a previous episode of movement will bind oddly forever after. None of this is the house moving.
Cross-checking and next steps
A sticking door earns weight only in company. Check the same zone for cracks in the walls — especially diagonal ones from the corners of that door frame — and for floor slope heading the same direction. Two or three symptoms agreeing in one part of the house is a genuine signal; run the full self-check before inviting anyone to quote. If the signs do add up, go in knowing what fair pricing looks like first.
Be wary of any contractor who diagnoses stump failure from a sticking door alone. Ask what else they found — slope measurements, subfloor findings, crack patterns. No corroboration, no deal.
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Common questions
My doors stick in summer and free up in winter. Is that movement?
Almost certainly humidity — or on reactive clay, seasonal soil breathing, which the house is generally designed to tolerate. The pattern to worry about is a ratchet: each cycle slightly worse than the last, or a door that stopped freeing up at all. Purely seasonal, fully-recovering sticking is normal house behaviour.
The door was fine until we had a wet winter. House or weather?
Could be either — wet soil swells and can lift or drop stumps unevenly, and wet air swells doors. Do the diagonal test now, note the figures, and repeat after a dry spell. If the frame measures square once the weather turns, it was the door. If the diagonals stay unequal, look at the other signs.
Should I just plane the door so it closes?
If the frame is square, yes — that's the whole fix. If the frame is out of square, planing hides your best early-warning instrument while the cause continues. Measure first, trim second.
Windows are sticking too. Same story?
Same logic, and actually a stronger signal — timber sash windows rack visibly when the wall under them settles, and aluminium windows in a moved frame jam hard rather than swelling gradually. A sticking aluminium window is harder to blame on humidity.