Replacing Bedroom and Toilet Doors in an HDB Flat: Door Only, or the Frame Too?

Pictured above: the lower part of a pair of white louvred bi-fold cupboard doors in a hallway, from our project archive (C05). They are cupboard doors, not a bedroom door, but they show what this guide is about: how the foot of a leaf meets its frame and the floor. That gap is where a door that has been fitted well and one that has not look different.

When the doors in a flat are tired, with scuffed faces, a latch that no longer catches or a leaf that sticks every wet season, the quotation often carries one line: "replace bedroom and toilet doors". That one line can mean two very different jobs. Either a new door leaf is hung on the frame that is already in the wall, or the whole frame is taken out and a new one is set. They are priced separately on our calculator, and they are not the same size of job.

This guide is for internal doors only: the bedroom and toilet doors. It uses the door and frame rates already published on our room cost calculator, gives five checks you can make yourself before anyone quotes, and ends with questions for the quote.

The short answer

Replace the leaf only when the frame is sound, square and dry, and the opening is the size you expect. Replace the frame as well when it is out of square, soft at the foot, or when the floor or wall around it is being rebuilt anyway. Hanging a new door on a bad frame does not fix the frame. The door simply starts to rub in the same place.

What our calculator publishes

The doors on the calculator are solid laminate, 3 x 7 ft by 95 mm. The published lines are:

• Solid laminate door: $388 each, including a lever lockset.
• Wooden door frame: $180 each, supply.
• Install door frame: $180 each, labour.

Put together, that is a gap you can see at once. A door on its own is $388 an opening. A door with a new frame is $388 + $180 + $180 = $748 an opening. For three bedroom doors that is $1,164 against $2,244, a difference of $1,080. That is arithmetic on the published lines, not a quotation for your flat, and the calculator is an indicative tool: the price for your flat follows a site visit.

Two things the calculator does not say, so ask. First, whether hanging a new leaf on an existing frame is already inside the $388 or is a separate labour line. The frame has its own labour line; the door line does not mention fitting. Second, what happens if your opening is not 3 x 7 ft, because only that one size is published.

Check 1: is it the door or the frame?

Close the door and look at the gap around it: along the top, down the latch side and down the hinge side. On a good fit the gap is roughly even. If the gap is even and the leaf is merely worn, swollen or damaged, the frame is doing its job and a new leaf is the logical job.

If the gap tapers, wide at the top on the latch side and tight at the bottom, or the door catches at one corner whichever way you lift it, the frame or the wall it sits in has moved. A new leaf hung on that frame will rub in the same corner. That is the case for replacing the frame as well.

Check 2: the foot of the frame, especially the toilet

Crouch down and look at the bottom 15 cm of each frame. Swollen timber, flaking paint, a dark stain or a soft spot you can mark with a thumbnail all mean the frame has been wet. A fresh coat of paint over that hides it for a season; it does not repair it. A frame in that state is a frame to replace, whatever the leaf looks like.

The toilet opening is also where the floor changes. If the toilet floor is being hacked and re-waterproofed, the frame stands in the middle of that work, so settle it at the quotation stage and do not discover on the day that it has to come out. Our guide to the ponding test and what to ask before tiling explains why the wet-area floor is done before anything is closed up.

Check 3: where the new floor will sit

A new floor layer raises the floor, and the leaf has to clear it. Our guide on vinyl overlay or re-tile makes the same point from the floor side: look at how each door swings and where the floor meets the next room, because a raised floor can leave a door that now catches.

So the order matters. Decide the floor first, then measure each door for the finished floor level, not the old one. Our published week-by-week plan for a full 4-room renovation puts painting, doors and hardware together in week 8, after the carpentry, which is consistent with hanging leaves last. A frame swap is different. It disturbs the wall around it, which then has to be made good and painted, so a frame that is changing belongs with the wall and floor work, not in the final week.

Check 4: the size of each opening

Do not assume every opening in the flat is the same. The published specification is 3 x 7 ft by 95 mm, so measure the width and height of each opening and ask what the 95 mm refers to before you assume it matches your frames. If an opening is not the size of the published door, the door or the frame has to be made to fit, and that is a different price from the calculator line. Ask who will measure, and ask for the made-to-size price in writing before you agree to the leaf-only route.

Check 5: the lockset, door by door

The published $388 includes a lever lockset. A bedroom door and a toilet door do not need the same lockset, so ask that the quotation names which lockset goes on which door. Write it down once, on the quote, and the handover check later is simple: open and close every door fully, as our handover inspection guide says, and look for any door that swings on its own, catches the floor or needs a push at the last inch.

Doors this post does not cover

Two doors are not ordinary internal doors. The household shelter has its own door and frame, and they are not to be modified, changed or removed. Our guide to the household shelter rules sets out what is and is not allowed. The flat's main entrance door also has its own rules, which this post does not cover, so check with HDB before you plan to change it.

Painting and the door frames

Whether doors and frames are inside a painting price is something our calculators do not spell out. Our guide to what a painting rate covers suggests asking for the surfaces to be listed on the quotation. That applies here too: if the leaf is laminate and the frame is timber, is the frame painted, and by whom?

Six questions to put on the quote

1. For each opening, is it leaf only or leaf and frame, and is that written down per door?
2. Is hanging the new leaf included in the leaf price, or is it a separate labour line?
3. What are the measured width and height of each opening, and who measured them?
4. What is the price if an opening is not the published 3 x 7 ft size?
5. Which lockset goes on which door?
6. When is each frame fitted relative to the wall making good, the floor and the painting, and who paints the frame?

What to do this week

1. Close every bedroom and toilet door and look at the gap on three sides. Note any door where the gap tapers.
2. Look at the bottom 15 cm of each frame, toilet first. Photograph any swelling, stain or flaking paint.
3. Measure the width and height of each opening and write them beside a simple sketch.
4. Decide whether the floors are changing, and send the photos, the measurements and that answer with your request.

We are an HDB Licensed Renovation Contractor, HB-09-5667H. Deciding whether your doors need new leaves or new frames? WhatsApp us on 9107 2601 with the photos and measurements above and we will arrange a site visit. Any price depends on that visit. The published door and frame lines are on our room cost calculator, and our other renovation services are on the HDB renovation contractors page.

Related reading: vinyl overlay or re-tile an HDB floor · the handover inspection before final payment · the household shelter rules