Checking doorways and delivery routes
How to measure a doorway’s clear opening and survey the whole route from the street to the room, with a worked example using the Doorway Checker.
Furniture that fits the room perfectly is no use if it cannot reach the room. Check the route before you order, starting with the narrowest opening.
Measuring a doorway’s clear opening
- Open the door as far as it goes.
- Measure the clear width at the narrowest point: usually from the door stop on the latch side to the face of the open door on the hinge side. An open door often steals 3–5 cm from the frame width.
- Measure the clear height from the finished floor or threshold to the underside of the top of the frame.
- Note anything that sticks into the opening: handles, door closers, hinges, a raised threshold.
If a doorway is slightly too narrow, lifting the door off its hinges usually gains the thickness of the door. Do this only if you are confident handling the door’s weight.
Surveying the whole route
Walk the path the item will take and measure each of these:
- The building entrance and any gate or porch.
- Every internal door on the way.
- Corridor widths, especially where a corridor turns.
- Stairs: width between handrails, ceiling height above the steps, and the size of each landing.
- A lift: the door opening and the inside width, depth and height.
- Low ceilings, light fittings and beams.
Use the delivery checklist to record each one; it saves your progress with your home project.
Worked example with the Doorway Checker
A room door has a clear opening of 78 cm wide by 198 cm high. A sofa is 215 cm long, 92 cm deep and 85 cm high including its feet. It is carried long-end first, so the doorway “sees” its 92 × 85 cm cross-section.
- On its feet: width 92, height 85. 78 − 92 = −14 cm. It does not fit straight-on.
- Turned on its back: width 85, height 92. 78 − 85 = −7 cm. It still does not fit straight-on.
- With the 12 cm screw-in feet removed the height becomes 73 cm. Turned on its back: width 73, height 92. 78 − 73 = 5 cm spare in width and 198 − 92 = 106 cm in height. The checker reports that it fits straight-on in this orientation.
Five centimetres in total is tight: that is 2.5 cm each side before packaging and fingers. Whether that is enough is your decision and the delivery team’s; the checker deliberately does not apply a universal allowance.
What the checker does not do
It compares two rectangles straight-on. It does not model tilting a sofa through a door on the diagonal, pivoting around a corner, carrying up stairs, or fitting into a lift. A positive result is one piece of evidence, not a delivery guarantee. If the route is tight, send your measurements to the retailer and ask them to confirm in writing.
Common mistakes
- Measuring the item but not its packaging.
- Checking the room door and forgetting the building entrance or the turn at the top of the stairs.
- Forgetting that the item must also turn once it is through the door, which needs space on the far side.
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