Filomuro door adjustment: uneven gap, rubbing, closing

Kulttur Team · Published: 27 August 2026

A correctly installed filomuro door does not stay perfectly adjusted forever. The wall dries out, the building settles, the flooring goes in after installation, and the leaf presses constantly on the hinges. On a conventional door with architraves, one millimetre of deviation disappears under the frame. On an invisible door with a 3 mm reveal, that same millimetre is visible from the end of the hallway. The good news is that almost every deviation is corrected with a hex key, in under 20 minutes, without touching the frame.

Why a filomuro door drifts out of adjustment in the first months

This is not a manufacturing defect, it is normal behaviour of materials and structure. Four causes cover most of the cases we see in service.

• The wall keeps working. Freshly skimmed plasterboard releases moisture for another 4-6 weeks after finishing. Load-bearing brickwork in a new building settles microscopically during the first year, and the frame follows the wall.
• Leaf weight. A 900 × 2100 mm filomuro leaf, with an extruded aluminium perimeter frame and a mineral wool core, weighs 30-40 kg. Constant pressure on two or three hinges produces a drop of fractions of a millimetre, which accumulates over the first months.
• Flooring installed after the door. Engineered wood over acoustic underlay, or self-levelling screed, adds 8-15 mm above the level the frame was set to. If the flooring contractor did not communicate the final thickness, the door ends up rubbing.
• The season. The difference in relative humidity between winter with the heating on and summer frequently exceeds 30%. The finish on the leaf reacts, and the reveal changes by a few tenths of a millimetre.

On a door with architraves, the frame covers a few millimetres of play and nobody notices anything. On a filomuro, the perimeter reveal is nominally 3 mm and remains the only visual reference the door has. If it becomes 4 mm at the top and 2 mm at the bottom, the eye immediately reads a line that narrows, even though the total deviation is a single millimetre.

The four symptoms and the adjustment that solves each

Before you touch any screw, identify exactly what you are seeing. A wrong diagnosis means adjusting the wrong axis and, as a rule, one more problem than you started with. The table below covers the situations that occur in practice.

The adjustment tolerance of a 3D concealed hinge is ±3 mm on each direction. If the deviation you measure exceeds 3 mm, adjustment will not solve it: this is a frame, opening or wall issue and it is handled separately, with the installer on site.

Lateral adjustment: an even reveal along the full height

This is the most frequently needed adjustment and, paradoxically, the simplest. It works on the axis that moves the leaf towards or away from the hinge jamb, so it shifts the reveal on the opposite side, where it shows.

1. Close the door and measure the lateral reveal at three points: 200 mm from the top, at mid height, and 200 mm from the bottom. Write the three values down, do not rely on memory.
2. Open to 90° and locate the adjustment screws on the body of each hinge. Concealed hinges adjustable on three axes have consistently positioned screws: the lateral one faces the leaf.
3. Turn a quarter turn on the top hinge, close the door and measure again. A quarter turn typically moves 0.3-0.5 mm, enough to see the difference without overshooting the correct point.
4. Repeat until the reveal is equal at all three points. The bottom hinge is corrected at the end, as fine tuning, not first.

Never turn a full revolution to speed things up. You will pass the optimal point and start compensating in the opposite direction, and by the third correction the thread runs loose. If after eight quarter turns the reveal is still not even, stop: the deviation exceeds the hinge margin.

Height adjustment: when the door rubs on the floor

The gap under the door is designed at 10 mm above the finished floor level, precisely to absorb execution differences and to let air travel towards the ventilation grille. When the flooring goes in after the frame, that gap drops to 2-5 mm, and a bedroom carpet cancels it entirely.

Vertical adjustment raises or lowers the leaf by up to 3 mm from its installed position. In practice:

• Measure the clearance at three points across the width of the door, with a thin rule or a set of feeler gauges.
• If you are 1-3 mm short, raise using the vertical screw on the top hinge, then follow with the bottom one, alternating a quarter turn at a time.
• If you are short by more than 3 mm, do not force the adjustment. Either the leaf is trimmed in the workshop or the height is recovered from the flooring, and neither is a weekend job.

Watch the sequence of works on site: if you know from the start that flooring goes in afterwards, the frame is set to the finished level, not to the screed. This is one of the common installation mistakes that you pay for with an impossible adjustment.

Depth adjustment: the leaf flush with the wall

The depth axis pulls the leaf towards you or pushes it towards the frame, with the same ±3 mm margin. This is the adjustment that decides whether the door looks like an invisible door or like a panel stuck crooked onto the wall.

Check with a one metre straightedge held horizontally across the reveal, at three heights: top, middle and bottom. If the straightedge rocks, the leaf is out of plane at that point. Correct from the hinge nearest the area where light stays visible under the straightedge.

Depth adjustment has a side effect many people ignore: it compresses or releases the seal in the frame. Too tight means a door that is hard to close and a gasket permanently flattened. Too loose means noise coming through and a draught under the door. The correct point is where the door closes with firm pressure, but without you having to push it with your shoulder.

When the problem is not the hinges

Three situations are frequently mistaken for a hinge adjustment and are not solved with a hex key:

• The magnetic lock does not catch. If the door closes fully but springs back at a touch, the problem is the strike plate in the frame, not the hinge. Loosen the two screws, move the plate 1-2 mm inwards and tighten again.
• Frame deformed by plaster. If plaster was applied under pressure, without spacers inside the opening, the jamb can bow inwards. It shows as a reveal that narrows exactly at mid height, while top and bottom are correct. Hinge adjustment does not compensate for a bowed jamb.
• The wall is not plumb. Check the jamb with a spirit level along its full height. A deviation of 4-5 mm over 2100 mm of wall means the opening was built out of plumb, and the reveal will never be parallel from the hinges alone.

What you adjust yourself and when to call the installer

Lateral and height adjustment are owner operations: you need a hex key, a rule and twenty minutes. You dismantle nothing, you touch no structure, and every step is reversible as long as you note how many quarter turns you made.

Call the installer when: the door exceeds 2400 mm in height and needs depth adjustment, the jamb is visibly bowed, an adjustment screw spins freely, or you need more than 3 mm on any axis. On tall leaves, a depth correction made unevenly produces a twist across the whole diagonal that is not easily recovered.

Good practice is one check at 4-8 weeks after installation, then an annual one, preferably in autumn when the heating starts. Five minutes with a rule, done on time, almost entirely eliminates the complicated adjustments later on. The routine attaches naturally to the maintenance steps we recommend for finish and hardware.

How long after installation is a filomuro door first adjusted?

At 4-8 weeks. That is the interval in which the wall finishes drying, the flooring is complete, and the leaf has settled on its hinges under its own weight. An adjustment made on installation day is lost anyway, because the materials had not yet reached equilibrium.

Which hex key do I need for concealed hinges?

Typically a 4 mm hex key for the lateral and vertical axes and a 2.5 mm one for depth. A standard metric hex key set covers both sizes. Do not use a bit in a power screwdriver: the high torque strips the thread in the hinge body.

How much can be corrected by adjustment, without removing the frame?

±3 mm on each of the three axes, meaning 6 mm total travel per direction. This margin covers normal execution deviations and first-year settling. Beyond 3 mm, correction means repositioning the frame or working on the leaf, both workshop operations.

Is filomuro door adjustment covered by the warranty?

The first adjustment after the settling period is included on doors installed by our team. Later adjustments, those caused by new work on floors or walls, are treated as a service call. A faulty hinge, with a stripped thread or axial play, is replaced under warranty if we carried out the installation.

If you have a filomuro door that no longer looks like it did on installation day, first measure the reveal at the three points and write the values down. With the numbers in hand, the conversation takes five minutes. Visit the showroom at Bulevardul Dacia 153-155, Bucharest, Monday to Friday between 10:00 and 18:00, or configure a new door directly on the site to see the final price with installation included.