Door hanging and installation cost in Adelaide

By the WTD team · Updated July 2026

Hanging a door in Adelaide costs $230 to $600 supplied and fitted, with $370 typical. Rehanging or repairing a door you already own runs $92 to $275, around $165 most of the time. The gap between those two numbers is almost entirely the door itself.

What door work costs in Adelaide

• Supply and fit, per door — $230 to $600, typically $370. Covers the door, hardware, hanging and trimming. The spread tracks what you choose: a hollow-core flush door sits at the bottom, a solid-core or panelled door at the top.
• Rehang or repair an existing door — $92 to $275, typically $165. Easing a sticking door, replacing hinges, refitting after painting, adjusting a door that has dropped.
• Full day of carpentry — $370 to $830. Relevant because doors are the classic job where booking a day beats booking a door.

Adelaide runs roughly eight per cent under the national average on carpentry, though it is currently the fastest-rising market in the country at +4.2 per cent against a national +3.6 per cent.

Why one door costs $230 and another $600

From the hallway, a well-hung door looks the same at either price. The variables sit underneath.

• The door. Hollow-core flush doors are light, cheap and quick. Solid-core doors are heavier, need three hinges rather than two, and are less forgiving to trim. Panelled and glazed doors cost more again and take longer to fit.
• Hardware. A basic passage set and a quality lever on a proper latch are different money and different fitting time. Privacy sets, deadlocks and closers each add.
• New frame or existing. Hanging into an existing frame is straightforward when the frame is true. Supplying and fitting a new frame, then making good the architraves and plaster, is a materially bigger job.
• Prehung or loose leaf. A prehung door arrives in its own frame, already hinged, and installs fast. A loose leaf must be measured, trimmed, mortised for hinges and latch, and fitted to the opening in front of you. Prehung costs more to buy and less to fit.

Where Adelaide's housing stock adds hours

This is the part that separates a quote given over the phone from a quote given after someone has looked.

Much of Adelaide's inner and inner-north-east stock is stone cottages, villas and bungalows built between the 1880s and the 1940s. Their door openings are frequently not square, not plumb, and not a standard modern size. A carpenter walking into that is not hanging a door, they are fitting a door to an opening — scribing the leaf, packing the frame, sometimes easing the head. That is an hour or two of extra work per door that no catalogue price covers.

Older doors also tend to be taller than the modern 2,040mm standard, which means either a non-standard door at a premium or an infill panel above the frame. And Adelaide's reactive clay soils move houses seasonally — doors that bind every summer and swing free every winter are usually a ground-movement symptom, not a hinge problem, which changes what the fix should be.

The practical upshot: on a house built before about 1950, get the quote after a site visit. Phone quotes on that stock are guesses.

Rehang or replace?

At $92 to $275 to rehang against $230 to $600 to replace, the arithmetic usually favours keeping what you have — if the door is sound.

Worth rehanging: a solid or panelled door in good condition that sticks, drops, or no longer latches. Original doors in older Adelaide homes are frequently better made than anything you can buy now, and a carpenter easing and rehanging one is the cheapest good outcome available.

Worth replacing: a hollow-core door with a damaged skin, any door with delamination or rot at the bottom rail, or a door that has been cut down so far it no longer has structure at the edge. Also worth replacing when the door is fine but the frame is not — a new frame with a rehung old door often costs more than a prehung unit.

One thing not to do is plane a sticking door as a first move. If it binds seasonally, planing it in summer leaves a gap in winter, and material removed does not come back.

External doors are a different price class

Everything above is internal doors. An entry door is a different job and a different budget — it is a security item, a weather barrier and the most visible thing on the front of the house, and none of those are true of a bedroom door.

Expect the fitting to sit at or above the top of the $230 to $600 band before the door itself, because an external opening involves weather seals, a threshold, drainage at the sill, and hardware that has to be both secure and durable. A deadlock fitted properly is mortised work, not a screw-on job. Add a security screen door and you are usually into a second supplier and a second visit.

Two Adelaide-specific notes. Western and northern elevations take severe summer sun here, and a timber entry door on those faces will move and check unless it is properly finished on all six surfaces — including the top and bottom edges, which is where it is most often skipped. And on older stock the original entry door is frequently the best thing on the house, in which case restoring and rehanging it beats replacing it comfortably.

The door between a garage and the house is its own category again. It is an external door in every practical sense — weather, security, and in many builds a self-closing unit specified that way in the original construction. Confirm what is currently fitted before ordering a standard internal leaf, because a like-for-like replacement matters more than the price difference suggests.

Sliding, cavity and bifold doors

Cavity sliders are the one to think about before you commit. A cavity door disappears into the wall, which means opening the wall up, installing a frame, and re-lining — that is carpentry plus plastering plus making good, and it is a substantially larger job than hanging a hinged door in the same opening. Worth it where a swing is impossible, expensive where it is merely preferred.

Surface-mounted sliders are far cheaper because nothing goes inside the wall, but the track and the door are visible. Bifolds sit between the two on cost and need a level head and a true opening to run properly, which brings us back to older Adelaide openings not being square.

Worth knowing: a lot of Adelaide's post-war and 1960s–70s housing already has cavity sliders to bathrooms and laundries. If yours jams, that is usually a worn or bent track rather than a door problem, and it is a repair rather than a replacement.

What is not included

• Painting. Doors are almost always supplied primed rather than finished. Painting is a separate trade and a separate cost.
• Architraves. A new frame usually means new architraves and making good the wall. Budget separately — the figures are in our skirting and architrave cost guide.
• Electrical. A door closer is carpentry. A smart lock needing power, or a light switch relocated because the door swing changed, is a licensed electrician's work.
• Removal. Taking away old doors and frames. Usually trivial for one door, a skip cost across a whole house.

Doing several at once

Doors are the clearest example of why a day rate beats a per-item rate. A carpenter attending for one door carries the same travel, setup and minimum callout as a carpenter attending for six, and door work is repetitive — the second door of the day is faster than the first because the tools are out and the method is set.

At $370 to $830 for a full day, a carpenter will commonly hang three to four new doors, or attend to six to eight rehangs and adjustments. Priced per door at $370, four doors is close to $1,480. Booked as a day and a half, the same work is often several hundred less.

The saving is real enough that it is worth waiting. If two doors are annoying you now and two more will need doing this year, doing all four in one visit is meaningfully cheaper than doing them as they irritate you. That logic runs across the whole trade — the reasoning is set out in our carpenter hourly rate guide.

Getting the quote right

Ask for these five things and two quotes become comparable:

• Whether the price is supply-and-fit or fit-only, and what door is specified
• Hollow-core, solid-core or panelled — stated, not assumed
• Whether hardware is included, and to what standard
• Whether the existing frame is being kept, and what happens if it turns out not to be true
• Making good — architraves, plaster, paint prep — included or extra

That fourth one matters most on older Adelaide homes, because it is the variable most likely to move. A quote that says nothing about it is a quote that will be revised on the day.

Frequently asked questions

How much does it cost to hang a door in Adelaide?

$230 to $600 per door supplied and fitted, with $370 typical. Rehanging or repairing a door you already have is $92 to $275, usually around $165.

Why are door hanging quotes so different?

Mostly the door itself. Hollow-core flush doors are light and quick; solid-core and panelled doors are heavier, need an extra hinge and are less forgiving to trim. Hardware, and whether a new frame is involved, account for most of the rest.

Is it cheaper to rehang an old door or fit a new one?

Rehanging, if the door is sound — $92 to $275 against $230 to $600. Original doors in older Adelaide homes are often better made than replacements, so easing and rehanging is frequently the best value available.

Why do my doors stick in summer and not in winter?

Usually ground movement rather than the door. Adelaide's reactive clay soils swell and shrink seasonally, moving the house and the frame with it. Planing the door in summer leaves a gap in winter, so have the cause looked at before removing material.

Is it cheaper to have several doors done at once?

Considerably. A carpenter attending for one door carries the same travel and minimum callout as one attending for six, and at $370 to $830 a day they will typically hang three to four new doors or handle six to eight rehangs.