How to Fix a Stuck Drawer

Featured Pro: Eric Stromer
Category: Home Improvement
Time: 2:11


ERIC STROMER: Hey, I’m Eric Stromer with a GMC Trade Secret that I think is going to make your life a little bit easier.

Whether it’s in your bathroom, your kitchen, your bedroom or your den, eventually you’re going to have to deal with a drawer that sticks. Now, there are a number of things that can cause the problem. Let me show you what you can do to fix it.

Now, plastic and metal runners like these generally don’t stick. And if they do, you simply spray them with lubricant and they should work just fine. If that doesn’t solve the problem, as a last resort you can always replace them with runners like these and they should work much better.

Now, wooden drawers can be a little more stubborn. To fix a sticking wooden drawer, first pull out the drawer to determine the problem. Check to see if anything has fallen into the drawer guides and become stuck.

Now, if nothing is blocking the runners, you’ll next want to look at the drawer’s structure. Now, when you’re dealing with a drawer that’s having trouble sliding in and out, one of the first things I always recommend is knocking in anything that may be loose or sticking out.

Now the structure’s okay. Let’s take a look at these runners. So you see that this is where the drawer actually sits on the piece of furniture itself when it’s operating. Oftentimes these will get rough and expand and contract with weather conditions, so it’s a good idea to give it a little bit of sanding.

Now a couple of choices when it comes to wax. You have your paraffin. You also have your beeswax. There’s also liquid beeswax. So any of these products will be really helpful in this situation. I’m going to go ahead and use a little bit of the liquid beeswax here. Apply it with your finger. You can see that that’s really nice and smooth. It’ll actually operate and function really well now.

All right, so the other option is something called nylon tape. And this also works very, very well in this application. Just go ahead and apply it on the runner. Smooth it into position and then use a utility knife to trim it exactly to the size of your runner. That ought to slide very, very nicely.

Okay, let’s go see how our drawer works. Yeah, that’s much better.

Just a few simple steps will fix that sticking drawer and get it back to opening smoothly.

I’m Eric Stromer. That’s your GMC Trade Secret.