Every carpenter on TheHire sees the same ten faults week after week. For each one: what it usually is, what you can safely try first, when to call, and what the call should cost in a typical Indian city.
1. A door or shutter sticks or will not close flush
Usually: seasonal swelling in the monsoon, a hinge that has loosened, or a carcass that has gone slightly out of square. On a main door, the frame itself may have shifted with the building.
Try first: look at the gap all round the closed shutter. If it is even everywhere except one spot, it is swelling or a catch. If the gap tapers from top to bottom, it is the hinges. A European concealed hinge adjusts with two screws in three directions; a quarter turn is often all it needs.
Call for: hinge alignment at ₹200 per shutter, or a hinge replacement at ₹300 plus hardware. For a main door that needs planing, that is carpentry done in the wet season, not the dry one.
2. A hinge screw spins and will not tighten
Usually: the board around it has swollen from moisture and lost its grip, or the screw was overtightened into a core that was never solid.
Try first: nothing improvised. Matchsticks and toothpicks in the hole are a two-week fix that makes the proper repair harder.
Call for: ₹300 per piece. The correct repair is to plug the hole with a glued hardwood dowel, let it cure, and re-drill a pilot. If several screws on one unit have gone, the carcass has a water problem and that is the real call.
3. A drawer drops, grinds or will not close
Usually: a roller channel that has worn, which is what cheap channels do within two or three years under load; a channel screw that has pulled out; or a drawer box that has racked out of square.
Try first: empty the drawer and pull it fully out. If the channel is visibly bent or the rollers are flat-spotted, it is the channel. Check whether the drawer box itself is still square.
Call for: ₹350 per drawer plus ₹150–₹800 for a telescopic or tandem soft-close channel. Replacing roller channels with telescopic ones across a kitchen in one visit is one of the best-value carpentry jobs there is.
4. A shelf sags
Usually: the span is too long for the thickness. A 19 mm plywood shelf over about 2.5 to 3 ft, loaded with books or crockery, will bow permanently over a few years. Thinner board sags sooner.
Try first: take the load off and look along the shelf. Plywood that has crept will not straighten on its own; turning it over buys a little time and no more.
Call for: a batten glued and screwed under the front edge, a mid-span support, or a replacement shelf in thicker board. Priced within the ₹350 per sq ft rate for shelving, or inside a ₹900 day rate if there are several.
5. A shutter has swollen and the laminate is lifting
Usually: water reaching an unbanded edge. The bottom edge of a shutter near a mop, the panel under a leaking sink, or a carcass against a damp external wall. The core swells, and the swelling pushes the laminate off.
Try first: find the water. A sink trap that weeps, a wall that darkens in the monsoon, a mop bucket always in the same corner. Re-gluing lifted laminate over a swollen core does not hold.
Call for: panel replacement at ₹600 plus ₹400–₹1,500, in BWP plywood with every edge banded this time. If the carcass base has gone too, that is the ₹500 per sq ft rebuild. Fix the water source first, or you buy the same repair twice.
6. A sliding wardrobe door jumps its track
Usually: dust and grit packed into a bottom track, a worn roller, or a track that was never fixed perfectly level. Bottom-rolling systems collect everything that falls in the room.
Try first: vacuum the track thoroughly, then wipe it clean. Do not oil a bottom track; oil holds dust and makes it worse. A dry silicone spray is better.
Call for: ₹500 per door to replace rollers and true the track. If the doors are heavy and the system is bottom-rolling, ask about a top-hung conversion while the carpenter is there.
7. Furniture is hollow inside, or there is fine dust on the floor
Usually: termites. They tunnel inside the wood and leave the surface intact, so the first sign is a panel that sounds papery when tapped, a mud tube on the wall behind, or a small pile of frass on the floor.
Try first: tap along the suspect panel and compare the sound with a part you know is solid. Look behind and under the unit where it meets the wall and floor.
Call for: pest control first. The treatment is theirs, not the carpenter's, and new wood in an untreated house is food. After treatment, replacing a damaged panel is ₹120 per sq ft plus ₹60–₹200.
8. A bed frame creaks, or a chair is loose
Usually: joints that have worked loose with use. On a bed, the side rail fittings and the central support. On a chair, the glued mortise joints in the frame have dried and opened.
Try first: tighten every bolt on a bed frame; it is often the whole fix and takes ten minutes. For a chair, check which joint moves by rocking it gently.
Call for: bed frame repair at ₹800, chair or table repair at ₹300 per piece. A chair joint should be cleaned of old glue and re-glued, not nailed; a nail through a loose mortise splits it.
9. A lock is stiff, or the main door does not align with its strike
Usually: a mortise lock that has not been lubricated, a frame that has shifted, or hinges that have dropped so the latch no longer meets the strike plate.
Try first: a dry graphite or PTFE lubricant in the cylinder, never oil, which gums up with dust. Look at the strike plate: a bright scratch above or below the hole shows which way the door has dropped.
Call for: lock fitting or replacement at ₹350 plus ₹300–₹2,500. If the door has dropped, the hinges are packed or replaced at ₹300 per piece, and the strike plate is moved.
10. A mosquito mesh is torn, or the window will not latch
Usually: mesh that has perished in the sun, a frame that has warped, or a latch that has rusted. In coastal cities, ordinary steel mesh and fittings rust within a season or two.
Try first: check whether the mesh frame still sits square; a warped frame will not seal however new the mesh is.
Call for: a mosquito mesh door at ₹900 plus ₹1,200–₹4,000; a wooden window at ₹1,200 plus ₹1,500–₹6,000. Ask for stainless or fibreglass mesh and stainless fittings near the coast.
Two rules that apply to all ten
Find the water first. Swollen board, blown hinge screws, lifting laminate and a collapsing carcass are all one problem with four faces. A carpenter who replaces the panel without asking where the water came from will be back.
One visit, several jobs. If four shutters are out of line, two drawers drag and a lock is stiff, post one request with all of it. The carpenter prices each item on its own rate and discounts from the fourth, you pay one ₹300 visit charge instead of several, and for a day of mixed small work the ₹900 day rate is often cheaper still.