Aging in Place · Service

Before you reframe anything, change the hinges

Door widening has a cheap version and an expensive version, and most households hear about the expensive one first. Swing-clear hinges recover the width the open door leaf is stealing, for the price of a hinge set. Sometimes that is the entire project. Find out before anybody opens a wall.

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In short

What is door widening?

Door widening increases the usable opening so a wheelchair, walker or wheeled shower chair can pass through. The number that matters is clear width with the door fully open, not the size of the frame — an open door leaf and its hinges take a real bite out of the gap. Because of that, the cheapest fix, swing-clear hinges, sometimes solves the whole problem without touching the wall.

Triggers

Signs you need door widening

Knuckles, hands or wheel rims catch on the frame every time the chair goes through
A walker has to be turned or folded to get through an internal door
The bathroom door is the one that is not wide enough, which is the one that matters most
The paintwork on both sides of a doorway is scuffed at wheel height
A carer cannot walk beside the person through the opening
A wheeled shower chair fits everywhere except the room it exists for
A new chair is wider than the previous one and doors that used to work no longer do

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The job

How door widening actually works

Measure the chair, then measure the opening

The chair's widest point in use includes the hands on the rims and any elbow movement, and it is wider than the catalogue figure. The opening is measured with the door fully open, from the door face to the stop on the other side. Those two numbers tell you how much width you actually need to find.

Watch for: Using the manufacturer's chair width. People propel with their hands outside the wheels, and the gap they need reflects that.
Try swing-clear hinges first

Swing-clear or offset hinges let the door swing completely out of the opening instead of standing in it. They recover the width the door leaf was occupying, they take an hour, they are inexpensive and they are entirely reversible. On a good number of doorways this is the whole answer.

Watch for: A contractor going straight to reframing. Ask explicitly whether offset hinges would give enough width. If the answer is no, ask by how much it falls short.
Consider removing the door, or changing what kind of door it is

Some interior doors are not doing anything and can simply come off. Where privacy is needed, a pocket door, a barn-style sliding door or a curtain removes the swing entirely — which also frees the floor space the door was sweeping, often as valuable as the width itself.

Watch for: A sliding door specified for a bathroom without checking it can be operated and latched by the person. Some sliding hardware needs a pinch grip and a sideways pull that is harder than a lever handle.
Establish whether the wall is load bearing

If the frame has to be widened, everything depends on whether the wall carries load from above. A non-bearing partition is a comparatively contained job; a bearing wall needs a properly sized header and temporary support while it is opened, which is structural work with an engineer or a qualified contractor and an inspection.

Watch for: A confident answer given from inside the room. Determining this properly means looking at what runs above — joists, trusses, the floor above, the roof — and it is not a guess anybody should make casually.
Find out what is inside the wall

Widening an opening frequently means relocating electrical cable, switches, a duct, or plumbing that runs in the same stud bay. Those are separate licensed trades and they are the usual source of the difference between the quote and the invoice.

Watch for: A price quoted without anyone checking the panel, the switch positions or where the pipework runs. On bathroom doorways in particular, there is often something in that wall.
Rebuild the opening properly and make good

A widened opening needs the framing done correctly, a door and casing that fit it, flooring made good across the threshold, and finishes matched. The making-good is a real part of the cost and is where cheap quotes tend to be silent.

Watch for: A level change or a strip of unfinished floor left in the new opening. It becomes exactly the catch point the widening was meant to remove.
Check the approach as well as the gap

A wide door is no use if the chair cannot line up with it. Doorways at the end of a narrow hallway need turning space to approach square, and that constraint frequently decides how wide the opening really has to be.

Watch for: A widened bathroom door opening off a narrow hall with no room to turn. Push the actual chair through before the work is finalised, not after.

Money

What does door widening cost?

This spans a very wide range. Swing-clear hinges are a small hardware cost; reframing a non-bearing opening is a contained job; a load-bearing wall with a new header, relocated services and finishes is a substantially larger one. Establish which of the three you are in before budgeting. See the Cost Guide.

See the full door widening cost guide — by material, size and region →

Work out how much width you need → Measure the chair in use, not from the brochure.

Straight answer

When door widening is the wrong call

Everyone else ranking for this is paid when you say yes. Here's when you shouldn't.

Offset hinges would give you enough. The most common overspend in this category. Try the cheap, reversible version and measure the result before anyone talks about walls.
The room beyond is too small to use anyway. Widening the door into a bathroom a chair cannot turn around in has bought access to a room that still does not work. Assess the room and the door together.
There is no space to approach the door square. Where a narrow hallway makes it impossible to line up, extra width in the opening may not help. Sometimes the answer is a pocket door on a different wall, or a different route entirely.
The wall is load bearing and the budget assumes it is not. Starting a structural opening with a partition-wall budget is how projects stall half-finished. Get the structural question answered before committing to anything.
The need is short-term. For a bounded recovery, removing the door, using a curtain, or borrowing a narrower chair is usually the proportionate response to a few months.
Nobody has pushed the actual chair through. Measurements taken from a spec sheet miss hands, elbows, footplates and the angle of approach. Ten minutes with the real chair is worth more than any calculation.

Your options

Types of door widening

Doors, generally

The door itself, replacement and hardware

Structural work in load-bearing walls

When the opening needs a header

Accessible bathroom planning

The room the widened door usually leads to

Permits and inspections

What structural openings typically require

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Before you sign

What to check when hiring for door widening

Would swing-clear hinges give us enough width, and if not, by how much do they fall short?

The cheapest possible answer, and one many contractors skip past. The shortfall figure also tells you how ambitious the real job needs to be.
Is this wall load bearing, and how did you determine that?

It is the difference between a modest job and a structural one. "It looks like a partition" is not a determination — ask what they looked at above.
What is inside this wall — wiring, ducts, plumbing?

Relocating services is the usual source of a change order. Getting it into the scope up front is how you get a price you can rely on.
What clear width will we have when the door is fully open?

Frame width is not the usable number. Ask for the finished clear opening, and check it against your own measurement of the chair.
How will the floor be finished across the new opening?

A strip of unfinished floor or a new level change in the threshold recreates the obstacle. It should be specified, not assumed.
Does this need a permit and an inspection?

Structural openings usually do. An unpermitted altered bearing wall becomes a problem at sale, and inspection is your independent check on the header.
Can we push the actual chair through before you finish?

The only test that counts. Approach angle, footplates and hands are not captured by any measurement on paper.

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Local pros

Door Widening near you

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Related work

Often done at the same time

Accessible Bathroom Remodel

Usually the doorway that matters most

Threshold Removal

The level change in the same opening

Accessible Entry Modifications

The exterior door and everything around it

Accessible Flooring Installation

Making good the floor across a new opening

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FAQ

Door Widening — questions people ask

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How wide does a doorway need to be for a wheelchair?

The honest answer is: wider than the chair in use, measured with the hands on the rims, and with enough margin for the angle it approaches at. Published accessibility standards do give figures, and they are a reasonable starting reference, but they were written for public buildings and for an anonymous user — your chair, your hands and your hallway are the actual constraint. Measure the widest point of the chair while somebody is sitting in it and propelling, add margin for a less-than-square approach, and use that. Then check the result by pushing the real chair through before the work is signed off.

What are swing-clear hinges and will they be enough?

They are offset hinges that let the door swing fully clear of the opening rather than standing part-way in it, which recovers the width the open leaf was occupying. They cost about as much as a decent door handle, take an hour to fit, and can be removed again without a trace. Whether they are enough depends on how much extra width you need — for many households they close the gap entirely, and for others they are not sufficient but they tell you exactly how much more is required. Either way they should be tried first, and any contractor who does not raise them is worth a second opinion.

How do we know whether the wall is load bearing?

It is determined by what is above it — the direction of the joists or trusses, what the floor or roof above is supported by, and whether the wall lines up with beams or walls elsewhere in the structure. That means looking in the attic, the basement or the crawl space, not just at the wall. A qualified contractor or a structural engineer makes this call, and where there is real doubt an engineer's opinion is inexpensive relative to the consequences. Do not accept a judgement made by knocking on the plasterboard, and be aware that removing or widening an opening in a bearing wall needs a properly sized header and temporary support during the work.

Is a pocket door a good option?

For accessibility it has a real advantage: it removes the door swing entirely, which frees floor space as well as width, and that space is frequently worth more than the extra inches. The trade-offs are that installing one usually means opening the wall alongside the doorway, that the wall cavity it slides into cannot then hold pipework, wiring or a grab bar, and that the hardware needs a grip and a sideways pull some people find harder than a lever handle. Barn-style sliding doors on the wall face avoid the cavity problem, seal less well, and take up wall rather than floor. All three are legitimate; the person's hands should decide.

Which door should we widen first?

The bathroom, almost always. It is the room where being unable to get in has the most immediate effect on dignity and independence, it is frequently the narrowest door in the house, and it is the one most likely to open off a tight hallway. After that, the bedroom, and then the route between them. Doors to rooms the person can manage without are far down the list, and it is worth resisting a quote that prices every door in the house when two of them carry nearly all the benefit.