Doorway width, and when you need a carpenter

You’re measuring because something no longer fits: a walker, a wheelchair, a shower chair on wheels, or a parent who needs an elbow on both jambs. The number that matters is not the size printed on the door slab. It is the hole you can actually roll or walk through once the door is open.

People copy the public accessibility number because it matches a chair going straight through. The 2010 ADA Standards say a door opening needs 32 inches of clear width, measured between the face of the door and the stop with the door open 90 degrees. That rule is written for public buildings. A private house does not have to follow it. If someone will use a wheelchair or a wide walker here, 32 inches of clear opening is still the number to aim at, because a 30-inch bedroom door with stops and hinges in the way is often closer to 28 inches of pass-through.

ADA.gov: 2010 Standards, §404.2.3 clear width

Cost to Renovate’s 2026 aging-in-place table puts doorway widening at $700 to $2,500 per doorway, averaging around $1,200. Their note is the same one you will hear from a carpenter: a wheelchair wants that 32-inch clear opening, a non-load-bearing partition is the cheap end, and a load-bearing wall with a new header is where the bid climbs.

Cost to Renovate: aging-in-place costs (2026)

How do I measure the opening I actually have?

Open the door 90 degrees. Put a tape on the face of the door (the surface that is now standing in the opening) and stretch it to the stop on the other jamb, which is the thin strip the door closes against. That number is clear width. Do not measure the slab, do not measure the rough hole in the studs, and do not measure with the door closed.

If the tape says 31 inches and you need 32, you are one hinge trick or a thinner stop away from skipping a carpenter. If it says 27 inches, hardware will not invent five inches. You are reframing.

Also measure height to the threshold. A saddle that sticks up more than about a quarter inch will catch a caster even when the width is fine. The old ADA checklist still used in public work treats a 1/4-inch edge as the easy case, and a beveled edge up to 3/4 inch if it has to be taller. Homes copy that because wheels and shuffling feet care about the bump, not the brochure.

ADA archive: barrier-removal checklist (doors)

While you are there, look at the wall on the pull side, next to the handle. A chair needs space beside the latch so the person can get next to the door and pull it. Public rules talk about 18 inches of clear wall on that pull side. A coat rack, a half-bath vanity, or a return-air grille sitting in that corner is why a “wide enough” door still feels impossible.

What can I try before I open the wall?

Offset hinges (also called swing-clear hinges) swing the door out of the opening instead of leaving the slab sitting in it. The ADA checklist lists them as the first cheap fix when you are close. They do not turn a 24-inch closet into an accessible bath. They buy you roughly the thickness of the door, which is often enough to go from “the chair scrapes” to “it goes through.”

Take the door off. If this is a bathroom someone uses with a walker and privacy is a shower curtain, an empty jamb is free width. You can hang the door again later.

Swap the round knob for a lever. Cost to Renovate puts lever handles at $100 to $250 per door installed. That does not add inches. It does mean someone with stiff hands can open the door they can already fit through. Do this on the doors you are keeping, not on a slab you are about to throw away.

A pocket or barn-style slide gets the slab out of the swing. That helps in a tiny hall where the door hits the toilet or the chair. It is a different job than widening, and a retrofit pocket usually means opening the wall on one side anyway.

If the tape is more than about two inches short, skip the hardware aisle and get a carpenter in before you buy a 36-inch door that will not fit the hole.

When do I actually need a carpenter?

You need a carpenter when the studs have to move. That is any time you want a wider rough opening, a new header, or a door that is more than a hinge-swap bigger than what is there.

Standard interior slabs in older houses are often 28 or 30 inches. A 32-inch clear opening usually means a 34- or 36-inch slab in a wider frame, because the slab, the hinges, and the stop eat the difference. Angi’s 2026 doorway-widening guide treats a typical professional job as $600 to $2,000, national average $1,200, which lines up with Cost to Renovate’s band. Angi then splits the work by wall:

• Non-load-bearing: $300 to $1,200
• Load-bearing (new header): $1,200 to $6,000
• Built as an accessible, extra-wide opening: $2,000 to $6,500

They also budget $150 to $500 for permits on jobs that need them, plus extra if wiring, plumbing, or a duct is in the wall you just opened.

Angi: widening a doorway (2026)

Load-bearing is the fork. A partition that only holds its own drywall is a framing-and-patch job: new jack studs, a short header or even a 2× built-up, drywall, paint, casing, new door. A wall that holds the floor or roof above it needs a header sized for that span, temporary support while the old studs come out, and often an engineer’s note. If the carpenter cannot tell you which kind of wall this is, do not let them start cutting.

Bathrooms are the expensive version of the same story because the wall may hide a vent stack, a shower valve, or a fan can. Moving those is not in a “widen the door” line item unless you write it in.

Which doors first?

Do the doors that trap someone, not the ones that look dramatic on a bid.

1. The bathroom they will use. A pretty no-step shower behind a 28-inch door is a room they cannot get into. If you are already remodeling that bath, widen this opening in the same dust. The bathroom budget guide is the rest of that room.
2. The bedroom they will sleep in, especially if that bedroom is on the entry floor. A chair that fits the hall but not the bedroom door means they sleep in the living room.
3. The entry they actually use, including the storm door and the threshold. Width without a bump still fails if the storm slab eats two inches.
4. Hall doors and closets last, unless a closet is the only place for a bedside commode or a lift.

You do not have to do every door in the house. Three doors that work beat twelve doors on a spreadsheet.

What should be on the carpenter’s bid?

1. Which opening, measured today’s clear width and the target clear width, not “36-inch door” with no method.
2. Load-bearing or not, in writing. If they need an engineer, that fee is on the bid or explicitly excluded.
3. Header spec if the wall is structural: lumber or LVL, how it bears, who temps the ceiling.
4. The new slab and frame: width, swing (left/right, in/out), fire rating if this is a garage or a unit entry, and whether casing matches the room.
5. What’s in the wall: outlets, switches, plumbing, HVAC. Relocate, or a written “we looked, nothing there.”
6. Finish: drywall, paint, trim, floor repair at the new jamb. A $900 framing number that leaves you with raw rock is not $900.
7. Threshold and pull-side clutter. If the chair still cannot get next to the handle, the extra inches do not matter.
8. Permit. If the city wants one for a header, the bid says who pulls it.

Get two prices if the wall might be load-bearing. The cheap one is usually the one that assumed it was not.

A worked example so the quote makes sense

Say the hall bath door tapes at 28½ inches clear. You want 32 inches clear so a standard manual chair goes through without folding.

Offset hinges might get you to about 30 if the slab is 1⅜ inches and currently sits in the opening. That is still short. You are reframing.

If that bath wall is a partition with no pipes, Angi and Cost to Renovate both put you in the neighborhood of $700 to $1,200 for a wider frame, a 36-inch slab, patch, and paint. If the same opening is on a bearing wall under a second-story bath, you are in the $1,200 to $6,000 Angi load-bearing band, and you should see a header and some shoring on the page. Add the lever ($100 to $250) on the new slab so you do not reuse the old knob.

Do not buy the door first. The slab size follows the new rough opening, not the other way around.

How do I decide this week?

1. Tape every door on the path from the driveway to the toilet and the bed. Write the clear number on painter’s tape on the jamb.
2. Mark anything already at 32 inches or better. Those get a lever if the knob is hard to use, and nothing else.
3. Mark anything within about two inches. Price offset hinges on those before you price a carpenter.
4. Everything shorter than that needs a carpenter, and you ask load-bearing or not on the first call.
5. Pair the bath door with whatever you are doing to the shower and the grab bars, because one dust event is cheaper than three.

A doorway is a hole in a wall. The carpenter is there when the hole has to move. Hardware is there when the hole is almost right and the slab is in the way.