LAST WEEKEND I was face down on the floor, a position guys often find themselves in on warm spring weekends.Many forces can take a man down over a weekend. One is fall-on-your-face exhaustion. Another is a swarm of young children descending on a prone papa. A third is an irresistible urge to take an afternoon nap, especially after beer at lunch.At various times in my life, I have been felled by these forces. But last weekend none of these suspects was the culprit. Instead, a sliding glass door had me on my stomach playing peekaboo with its adjustment screw. That's the screw that controls the position of the rollers in the bottom of a sliding door, making it taller or shorter.Using a flashlight, I could see the head of the screw buried deep within a hole in the side of the door frame. But when I stuck a screwdriver in the hole, my vision was blocked. I was working belly-flopped and blind. Sliding glass doors are one of life's contradictions. They hold out the promise of easy and joyful interaction with nature.

Yet when they fail as this one did, when they refuse to close correctly, you end up prostrate before them.Sliding doors, also known as patio doors, can be one of the hushed wonders of the domestic world. They welcome light and air into the house. They beckon you to step out of your dark, cold abode and lounge on the sunny deck, the welcoming patio, or the fragrant back yard.garage door seals torontoThat is how they behave when they are young. door knob prices lowesBut as they age, old sliding doors are, I have been told by teen-agers, a lot like old dads. garage door companies grand rapids miThey start slowing down, they groan when they move and at times are less than joyful to live with.garage doors low headroom

An old groaner had me on the floor last weekend. It was a door that opened onto an elevated porch at our "getaway" cottage on the Eastern Shore. Getaway houses are another of life's contradictions. You go there to escape the burdens of work, yet when you arrive at your hideaway you are toting a bulging toolbox and a list of chores that fills two pages.garage door panels san antonioThis particular door, a 25-year-old metal frame unit made by Peachtree, had been sending out warning signals. frameless shower doors keller txInstead of sliding with quiet power, it had begun to balk. timber french doors west midlandsIt rolled reluctantly and, once it got moving, sounded like a midnight freight train.I tried a couple of quick remedies, cleaning the tracks and lubricating them with graphite.

These measures provided only short-term relief.Moreover, a bigger problem emerged, namely the door's latch would not line up with its strike plate. That meant I couldn't lock the door unless I first lifted it up. When the door rested in this odd uplifted position, it put strain on the latch.Eventually the lock broke. A trip to the locksmith - another example of getaway weekend fun - yielded a new lock. But when I installed the lock in the old door, the new lock still wouldn't line up with the strike plate. That is when I got down on my belly to search for the adjustment screws.I read that the rollers or wheels the doors roll on can be adjusted by turning special screws. These screws, the literature told me, could either be in plain view, just above the corner of the sliding door, or hidden behind plastic plugs in the bottom and sides of the door.Mine were hidden better than Osama bin Laden. Eventually I did locate one screw in a deep hole tucked in the side of the door. Reaching it required finding a very long Phillips screwdriver.

When I turned the screw, the situation did not improve. The door still groaned. The latch still would not line up unless I lifted it into place.When I got back to Baltimore, I called Will Werren, a Fallston resident who calls himself The Old New England Carpenter. Werren had recently installed a new sliding glass door in the home of someone I knew.Yesterday, when I got him on his cell phone, Werren told me that while he had "put in a ton of sliders" around Baltimore, he actually preferred swinging doors. Doors that swing open, rather than slide, are more stable, more secure, he said.Nevertheless, he listened to a description of my slider woes, then came up with a diagnosis."Your rollers are shot," he said. The normal life span of a sliding door is about 20 years; my door and its parts were living on borrowed time."Rollers, just like the wheels on a streetcar, wear out with use," he said.He outlined a plan of action. I could take the door off by turning the adjustment screw until the door was at its lowest point in the track.

Then he said I could lift the door up, and tipping it slightly inward, lift it out of the lower track.Once the door was off, I could install new rollers, then have the door back in place.Or, as Werren put it: "You take everything apart. Put it all back together. And if it still doesn't work, you call the doctor."That sounded like a pretty big project to me. One that could swallow two or three getaway weekends.To be continued ... Child sex abuser sentenced to 8 years Girl and 2 boys were victimsMillions of dollars can't wipe away painJordan has list of demands for Bulls, report saysRiggins gets life for killing wifeBarkley allegedly spit on girl, 8What killed the famous tenor?Show All ItemsOur RV has two "pocket" doors that slide on a top mounted roller that separates the bathroom from the back bedroom and the kitchen. For reasons unknown, one of the screws that holds the one roller latch to hooks to the top of the door pulled out. So we will need to remove the door, and then move the latch over slightly so the screw will have good wood to hold onto.

(Sorry, I didn't get a picture of the damaged latch :( )The type of connection that this door has uses a pin to lock onto the door latch. There are a few types of roller/latch designs - some have a bolt that goes through the roller - this is NOT that type. We have the type that the pin slides into the door latch - which is good because you do not need any tools to remove the door!I did need a screw driver however, to screw the door latch into it's new location on the door where the wood was not damaged.Above is the door when attached to the two rollers in the ceiling channel.A view of the of the roller pin, and the connecting door latch is belowAbove is the pin which has a roller on it, and slides on the ceiling mounted track. The door has two latches which attach to these pins, and allows the door to slide side to side.Above is view from the top of the door of the latch. It is screwed into the top of the door. The pin from the roller drops into the large open circle, then slides into the channel - where the flat portion of the pin slides under the sides of the latch which holds the door.