How To Store Cabinet Doors Between Arrival And Installation
How should you store cabinet doors before installation? Keep them packaged, flat, climate-controlled, and away from uneven heat and cold.
At A Glance
How Should You Store Cabinet Doors Before Installation?
Keep cabinet doors in their original packaging until you need them. After opening the package, store them flat in a climate-controlled space, away from direct heat and sunlight. Also, finish raw doors within the recommended timeframe. These steps reduce the risk of warping, twisting, cracking, and other movement before installation.
You have cabinet doors in production, but you are not installing them as soon as they arrive. Where should you put them in the meantime? Can they stay in a garage or job trailer? Should you open the package right away? Most importantly, could poor storage damage the doors and leave you paying for replacements?
At Cutting Edge Doors & Woodworking in Saskatchewan, we manufacture and ship hundreds of cabinet doors each day. Many go to cabinet makers and contractors with established storage processes. However, we also work with customers who are less familiar with how wood and MDF react after delivery. That experience has helped us develop storage requirements that protect cabinet doors between arrival and installation.
If you ordered cabinet doors from Cutting Edge, proper storage generally means:
How Should You Store Cabinet Doors From Cutting Edge?
Storage requirements vary by supplier, so always follow your cabinet door supplier’s storage requirements. At Cutting Edge, we recommend following these four guidelines.
Leave Cabinet Doors In Their Original Packaging
Keep your cabinet doors packaged until you are close to using them.
Cutting Edge ships cabinet doors on a wrapped skid to protect them from dirt, physical damage, and sudden moisture changes during transportation. Once you open that packaging, the doors are exposed to the climate in your shop or jobsite, where raw wood and MDF can begin gaining or losing moisture.
Obviously, if the shipment arrives with visible freight damage, you will need to open it and inspect the order. Otherwise, leave the skid wrapped until you need the doors.
For raw cabinet doors, we recommend applying the first coat of finish within 24 hours of opening the package. Finishing (whether paint or lacquer) slows how quickly moisture moves into and out of the material, helping reduce sudden changes after the doors are exposed.
Although prefinished doors don’t require finishing, they still require proper storage.
Store Cabinet Doors Flat After Opening Them
After removing cabinet doors from their packaging, place them flat on a clean, level surface.
Avoid leaning them against a wall while you wait to finish or install them. Storing a door on an angle means its weight is supported unevenly. This can contribute to bowing or twisting.
If you stack several doors, make sure the surface underneath is flat and large enough to support them fully. Also, keep the stack somewhere it will not be bumped, walked on, or used as a temporary work surface.
| Storage Method | Recommended? | Why? |
|---|---|---|
| Flat on a clean, level surface | Yes | Supports the door evenly |
| Flat on an uneven surface | No | Can put uneven pressure on the door |
| Leaning against a wall | No | May encourage bowing |
Keep Cabinet Doors Away From Sources Of Heat
Do not store cabinet doors beside heaters, furnaces, heat registers, or other concentrated heat sources.
The concern here is uneven exposure. Wood contains moisture, and changes in temperature and humidity can cause that moisture to move into or out of the material. If one side of a door changes faster than the other, the door may begin to move unevenly (warp or twist). Direct sunlight can create the same problem.
Choose a storage location where the entire set of cabinet doors is exposed to similar conditions.
Store Cabinet Doors In A Climate-Controlled Environment
Cutting Edge recommends storing cabinet doors at 30% to 40% relative humidity and between 15.5°C and 26.5°C, or 60°F to 80°F.
A climate-controlled shop is a good place to store cabinet doors. However, unheated garages, trailers, storage containers, or unfinished buildings are not. These spaces can experience large swings in temperature and humidity. For example, a trailer may heat up in direct sunlight during the day and cool quickly overnight. In winter, an unheated garage may fall well below the recommended minimum temperature. In either case, the material can quickly gain or lose moisture.
We had one customer tell us that the joints of their cabinet doors were splitting. Upon further investigation, we learned that the order had been stored in an unheated trailer for several months. Over that time frame, the doors had shifted enough to permanently weaken the joints.
If you are unsure whether your storage area meets the recommended range, use a thermometer and hygrometer. A hygrometer measures relative humidity, helping you determine whether a location is suitable.
Why Is It Important To Store Cabinet Doors Properly?
Cabinet doors can react to their environment after leaving the manufacturer. That’s why proper storage is mainly about keeping environmental changes as small and even as possible.
Solid wood naturally gains and loses moisture as humidity changes. It can expand as it gains moisture and shrink as it dries. MDF is more stable than solid wood in many situations, but because it is also made from wood fibres, large or uneven environmental changes can still affect it. These changes do not automatically cause a problem. However, the greater and less even they become, the higher the risk that a cabinet door may move before installation.
Improper Storage Can Contribute To Warping Or Twisting
Warp is one of the most noticeable storage-related concerns because it can affect how a cabinet door hangs and lines up with neighbouring doors. A warped door may bow across its width or height, while a twisted door may sit correctly at some corners but pull away at others. Several factors can contribute to these problems, including material movement, door construction, manufacturing issues, and environmental conditions.
A warped door was not necessarily stored incorrectly. However, proper storage helps prevent warp.
Improper Storage Can Affect Warranty Coverage
Storage also matters if you later need to submit a warranty claim. Like many cabinet door suppliers, Cutting Edge does not warranty damage caused by improper storage. This includes damage caused by storing doors outside the required temperature or humidity range or handling them contrary to our storage requirements.
However, that does not mean every warped or twisted door is automatically the customer’s responsibility. Material or manufacturing issues can also cause warp.
If you follow the storage recommendations and a door still warps or twists, you can submit a warranty claim for review.
Protect Your Cabinet Doors Before Installation
Proper cabinet door storage comes down to four things: keep the doors packaged until you need them, store them flat after opening, protect them from uneven heat, and maintain stable temperature and humidity. While these steps cannot prevent every issue, they reduce avoidable risks that could delay installation or leave you paying for replacements.
If you followed the storage requirements and still have a warped or twisted cabinet door, your next step is to determine whether the problem may qualify for warranty. Cutting Edge manufactures and ships cabinet doors from Saskatchewan to cabinet makers, contractors, and homeowners across North America, and our team reviews warranty concerns when a product does not perform as expected. Learn how to submit a warranty claim for a warped or twisted cabinet door so you know what information to provide and what happens next.
