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Owen, you are a GENIUS!!! I tightened the top right screw that you had spotted was loose, and the key now turns the lock - like a knife through butter. I’m speechless. You have no idea how much trouble the lock was causing us. My elderly Mum can now come and go without me having to be at home...

Yes, it does.

Well... 6 months ago I started this post, and we have a new problem with the door! To recap. We (unwisely, in hindsight) replaced our old, 120-year-old front door because it let in the wind; we should have refurbished it... The original problem was that the new door appeared to be crooked...

Sorry, I’m not sure where you would like me to measure.

What really puzzles me is that the vertical parts of the door (the left, right and centre strips running top to bottom) look truly vertical, with each of them the same width top to bottom (nothing shaved off). But the horizontal lines of the top and bottom of the panels are at an obvious slant...

I’m afraid I don’t understand all the technical terms in the comments that have been made. But I can confirm that the house has suffered settlement in the past (sometime before we moved in 20 years ago).

I should have said, the black draft excluder is from the previous door and wasn’t fitted this week by the carpenter. However, he has advised us to fit a wider one... Here are some photos taken from inside.

I take the point about the original door being imperfect to start with, then modified to make it appear ‘square’ and pleasing to the eye. One of the problems with the new door is that the vertical piece of wood down the middle is narrower than on the original door. As well as making it look...

Thanks everyone. You’ve been really helpful and I’m very grateful. The carpenter took the old door away after fitting the new one, but I’ve now asked him to hold onto it so we have the option of refurbishing. The old door does look so much better, I agree. But it was letting the daylight...

This is the original door

Yes, the new widths are narrower than the old. We used to be able to fit the door numbers (1 and 4) side by side; but no longer...

I think what the carpenter is proposing is to add some wood to the top of the door, thereby increasing the size of the top rail (which at the moment looks too small relative to the rest of the door and accentuates the overall lack of symmetry); and then make the bottom rail smaller to...

The carpenter who fitted the door has just replied to my email. He still has the original door that was taken out and has noticed that a wedge of wood was inserted to make it look ‘square’!

I don’t know what wood the door is made of, I’m afraid. It makes me wonder if the carpenter has the ability to do a better job, even if he agreed to. Maybe it’ll look better when the door is painted (navy blue). Otherwise, we might have to start again and swallow the loss, because I’m not sure...

The carpenter said he had to have the door made because it wasn’t a standard size. We waited months for it to be made, with him having to chase the factory up, etc. So it’s a mystery to me that it isn’t better proportioned (e.g. the rails). Something doesn’t add up; but I trust the carpenter.

I paid £850 (and live in Worcester). I don’t know if this is a lot or not for a new wood front door & lock. He is a carpenter who has done work for us before, so we asked him.

We think the old door was original. The new one isn’t exactly the same; we asked the carpenter for one that was similar and this is what he brought us. It looks cheaper, sadly. We’ve kept most of the original fittings (letterbox, keyhole, numbers), but the centre vertical on the new door is too...

Yes, I had wondered, too, if we just didn’t notice the crookedness before (because of a ‘deeper top rail’, as you suggest). The trouble is that it looks terrible now, in my opinion. Is there any way of making the top of the top panels look more horizontal and parallel with the top of the door...

The carpenter seemed to do a lot of cutting while he was here. I was upstairs working and I could hear his power tools going. I wonder if he got a big enough door but cut the wrong bits off. It closes properly, but just looks really crooked at the top.