Cabinet repair in Fort Wayne

Common cabinet problems and the usual fix

Most cabinet repair in Fort Wayne comes down to a handful of problems, and most of them live in the hardware. The box behind a sagging door is usually fine.

Problem	Usual cause	Usual fix
Door sags or won't line up	Hinge out of adjustment, or screws pulled loose	Adjust the hinge; plug stripped holes with glued dowels and re-drill
Hinge broken or won't stay closed	Worn spring or cracked hinge cup	Replace with a matching hinge, often a soft-close one
Drawer sticks, drops or rolls out crooked	Worn roller slides or a bent track	New ball-bearing or undermount slides
Drawer front pulls off or bottom falls out	Stapled particle board corners split	Reglue and reinforce, or build a new drawer box
Sink base floor soft or swollen	A slow leak under the sink	Cut out and replace the floor panel after the leak is fixed
Laminate or thermofoil peeling	Heat from the oven or steam from the dishwasher	Reglue a small lift; replace the door if it keeps peeling
Cabinet pulling off the wall	Screws in drywall only, missing the studs	Re-fasten through the back rail into studs

Try the easy check first. Most modern hinges have two or three small screws that move the door up, down, in and out. A quarter turn with a screwdriver fixes a lot of crooked doors.

Fix the leak before the cabinet

A water-damaged sink base nearly always has a slow drip behind it. The usual sources are the drain trap, a supply line, the dishwasher hose, the base of the faucet or the garbage disposal. Most cabinet floors are particle board, and particle board swells and crumbles once it stays wet.

Have a plumber fix the leak first. Then let the cabinet dry out for a few days with the doors open before the new floor goes in, or the new panel will start to swell the same way. Moving or rerouting drain and supply lines is plumbing work, and the Allen County Building Department requires a permit for it.

Worth fixing, or time to replace?

Repair makes sense when the trouble is in the hinges, slides or one damaged box, and the rest of the kitchen is solid. Look at the bigger options when the damage is spread out:

• Fix it when one or two doors, drawers or the sink base are the problem and you like how the kitchen looks.
• Reface when the boxes are sound but doors are worn, peeling or dated all over. Cabinet refacing replaces every door and drawer front and covers the frames.
• Paint when the doors are in good shape and only the finish is tired. See cabinet painting in Fort Wayne.
• Replace when several boxes are swollen, the particle board is crumbling, or the layout no longer works. Start with custom kitchen cabinets.

If a repair quote for many boxes starts to approach what refacing costs, about $4,200 to $10,200 in national guides, ask for both prices at the same visit.

Soft-close upgrades

Soft-close is one of the most asked-for add-ons during a repair visit. On doors, there are two routes. If your cabinets already have concealed cup hinges, they can often be swapped for soft-close versions that fit the same holes. Older exposed hinges on face-frame cabinets mean drilling cup holes in each door, which takes longer but works on most solid doors.

Drawers are trickier. Soft-close slides need a set amount of space beside or under the drawer box, so the cabinet maker measures each drawer first. Some old boxes have to be rebuilt to fit. A clip-on damper is a cheaper fix for a door that only slams.

How much cabinet repair costs in Fort Wayne

National cost guides put a cabinet repair job at about $130 to $500. A hinge adjustment sits at the low end. Replacing a sink base floor or rebuilding drawer boxes sits higher.

What moves the price	Effect
Number of fixes	Several small fixes in one visit cost less than separate trips
Parts	Soft-close hinges and full-extension slides cost more than basic ones
Wood replacement	A new sink floor, side panel or drawer box adds material and shop time
Matching the finish	Stain or paint touch-up on new parts takes extra work
Second visit	Needed when parts are ordered or a panel is built in the shop

Make a list of every loose door and sticky drawer before the visit. Fixing them together usually costs less than calling about each one.

Painted cabinets in older homes

A hinge swap or a new drawer box disturbs almost no paint. Stripping or sanding painted doors and frames in a house built before 1978 is different, since the old paint may contain lead. More than 6 square feet of disturbed paint in a room means the work needs an EPA Lead-Safe Certified firm.

Cabinet repair questions