How to repair water-damaged chipboard vanity door?

[medea1]

This vanity has Four doors and one has this damage. Im thinking of selling my place so looking for an easy, cheap but effective repair option. Any ideas are welcome!

[JacobZ]

Hi @medea1,

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community, it is fantastic to have you with us.

That's a bit of a tricky one because you are dealing with chipboard that has expanded. The problem is that once the fibres in the chipboard have expanded, there's no way to shrink them back to their original size.

You can try grabbing some clamps and a couple of blocks of timber, and squishing the fibres back together. If it is successful, you can add some watered-down PVA glue to the chipboard, then reclamp. Unfortunately, I don't really see this working because of the extent of the swelling, but it could be worth testing.

Unfortunately, I think you are either going to have to replace the door or speak with a cabinet maker to see if they have any method they can use to restore the door to its original state.

Allow me to tag @Nailbag and @Dave-1 to see if they have any ideas.

Jacob

[medea1]

Really appreciate it and i had the same thought with the degrees of swelling - if Nailbag and Dave dont have any other ideas, does bunnings offer product / service to replace and or install the vanity doors (there are four in total that would need to be replaced). I noticed bunnings do with room doors.

[JacobZ]

Hi @medea1,

Unfortunately, we don't currently offer this as a service.

You would have to use a service such as HiPages to find a professional, such as a cabinetmaker or handy person with experience with cabinets, to replace them for you.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Jacob

[Dave-1]

Good Evening @medea1 

I do not know of a way to recover a door from swelling 😕 Thats the bad news.

Good news you have some options I can think of....

Option one -

- take a door off and go into Bunnings kitchen section with it. If its a standard size you may be lucky. (its easiest I think carrying teh door then straight out measurements)

Option two -

- Flip the doors upside down. Remove the hinges and handles, flip the doors upside down if the base of the doors are ok. You will need to re-do the inset of the hinges is all (you can buy the tool needed from Bunnings)

- Option three  -

- Take the door to a kitchen installer/cutting out company. If you look up your local light industrial area you will probrally find one, they can match size for size without a problem.

Option four -

- Leave as is, I often think when people are selling a place is it worth spending a bunch of money on small things. I know its a iffy iffy thing but something to keep in mind.

Dave

[medea1]

Thank you so much @Dave-1! Those are great suggestions - ive pop down to bunnings and see if they have some options. Ive also emailed the company to see if they can match the damaged door. Really appreciate your help!

[Nailbag]

Hi @medea1 

As @JacobZ mentioned, unfortunately there is no solution to save the door once the timber has swollen from water ingress. Unless of course you're not fussy about the outcome in quality of finish and durability.

Can you measure the thickness of a good door, it's probably 16mm or 19mm. Based on that there are companies that will make replacement doors or you might be able to make one up yourself, though not as easy as it might appear.

Nailbag