Carpenter Charges in Delhi: Furniture Repair, Doors & Assembly (2026)

Carpenter charges in Delhi: the rate table

These are the ranges independent carpenters in Delhi NCR generally quote in 2026 for common repair and fitting work. All of them are labour — hardware and materials (a new lock, a set of channels, a hinge) are a separate line and are usually charged at cost or close to it.

Indicative Delhi NCR market ranges, 2026. Each professional sets their own charge and quotes you free before starting. Parts are normally billed on top of labour.

How carpenters actually price a job

There are three models in this trade, and confusion between them is where most disputes start. Ask which one you are on before anyone opens a toolbag.

• Per job (fixed). The most common and the best for you. The carpenter looks at the door, or the drawer, and quotes a number for that piece of work. You know the price before it starts and it does not move unless the scope does. Push for this whenever the job is clear enough to define.
• Per hour. Sensible when the scope genuinely cannot be known until they open something up — a wardrobe with three unrelated faults, or a "look at everything in the flat" visit. The risk is obvious: the meter runs. Cap it. Agree an estimated number of hours up front and agree that you will be told before it goes over.
• Per day. Used for larger work — a full day of fitting, or several jobs bundled into one visit. A day rate is usually better value than hourly if you have a genuine list, which is the real argument for saving jobs up. Fixing five small things in one visit almost always costs less than five separate call-outs.

Two things to settle in the same conversation, because they are the ones that turn into arguments later:

• Is the visit or inspection charged, and is it adjusted against the job? Many carpenters charge to come and look, and credit that against the work if you go ahead. That is fair. Just know it in advance.
• Who buys the hardware? Hinges, channels, locks, screws, a sheet of ply. You can buy them yourself, or the carpenter can bring them. If they bring them, ask to see what they bring and what it cost. Hardware quality varies far more than its price does, and cheap channels fail in a year.

The sticking door: the classic Delhi overcharge

This is the section worth the read. A door that scrapes the frame, will not latch without a push, or hangs visibly crooked is the single most common carpentry complaint in Delhi — and it is the single most common place people are told they need a new door.

They almost never need a new door. A door that used to work and now does not has not "worn out". Doors do not wear out. Something small changed, and there are only about four candidates:

• The hinges have loosened or dropped. Screws work loose in the frame over years of slamming, the door sags on its hinges, and the top corner starts to catch. This is the most common cause by a distance. The fix is tightening, re-plugging the screw holes, or replacing a hinge — a small hardware job.
• The door has swollen. Delhi's monsoon. More on this below. It is seasonal, and it is a planing job, not a replacement.
• The frame has shifted or the alignment is off. Settlement, or a frame that was never quite square. Adjustable with packing and rehanging.
• The latch or strike plate is out of position. The door closes fine but will not catch. That is a five-minute adjustment to a metal plate.

Look at the rate table again with that in mind. A hinge, handle or tower-bolt fitting is ₹150–500. A door alignment or sagging-door repair is ₹300–900. Installing a new flush door is ₹800–2,000 in labour alone — plus the cost of the door itself, which you also have to buy, and which is usually the larger number.

So being sold a door replacement when the actual fault is a dropped hinge is not a small overcharge. It is a job that should have cost a few hundred rupees turning into several thousand. It happens constantly, and it happens because "the door is finished, madam, it has to be changed" is a very easy thing to say to someone who has never thought about how a door works.

How to protect yourself, in one question: "What exactly is wrong with it — is it the hinges, the swelling, the frame, or the latch?" A carpenter who has diagnosed the door will answer immediately and show you. They will lift the door handle and show you the play in the hinge, or run a finger down the edge that is catching. A carpenter who cannot name the fault, and goes straight to replacement, has not looked. Get a second quote — the second one is usually a hinge job.

A door genuinely does need replacing when it is structurally gone: delaminated and bubbling at the bottom from years of water, hollow-core and caved in, split through, or eaten out by termites. Those are visible failures. You will not need a carpenter to tell you that door is finished — you will be able to see it.

Why your doors stick in July and not in April

Wood is not inert. It takes moisture out of humid air and gives it back to dry air, and it changes size as it does — swelling across its width in the wet months and shrinking back in the dry ones. Delhi puts wood through an unusually brutal version of this cycle: bone-dry, blazing summers, then a monsoon that pushes humidity to the ceiling for weeks.

So a door that shuts perfectly in April can bind against the frame in July, and then ease again by October. It is not damaged. It is doing what wood does.

This matters because of how it gets fixed:

• A good carpenter planes for the season. They take off just enough to clear the binding, knowing the door will shrink back when the air dries — and they take it off the right edge, in the right place. Done well, you get a door that works in both seasons.
• A careless one takes off too much in the monsoon. Then in February the door has a visible gap all around it, rattles, and does not latch cleanly. That is a monsoon repair that has quietly created a winter problem.
• And an unscrupulous one calls it a dead door and sells you a replacement for a seasonal swell that would have eased on its own by Diwali.

The practical move: if a door starts binding in the monsoon, note where it catches and what it is like once the weather dries. If it eases by itself, you have swelling — get it planed at the end of the season, not in the middle of it, so the carpenter is working on wood at something closer to its normal size. If it still catches in the dry months, the cause is hinges, frame or latch — and it is still not a new door.

One more Delhi note: seal the edges. The top and bottom edges of a door are very often left unpainted and unpolished — nobody sees them — and they are exactly where moisture gets in. A door that swells badly every monsoon is often a door whose edges are bare. Ask for them to be sealed while the carpenter has it off its hinges. It is a small addition to the job and it reduces the swelling next year.

Repair or replace? An honest answer for furniture

Not everything is worth repairing, and a carpenter who tells you it is not is being honest, not lazy. The line is mostly about what the thing is made of, not how old it looks.

Indicative guidance only. The professional you choose assesses the piece and sets their own price.

Two things that people replace far too readily:

• Drawer channels and cabinet hinges. When a drawer stops sliding or a shutter droops, the wardrobe is not "finished" — a channel or a hinge has worn out. They are consumables. They are meant to be replaced. It is one of the cheapest jobs on the table and it makes the furniture feel new.
• Furniture that just looks tired. If the structure is sound and the finish is dull or scratched, that is a polishing job, not a replacement — priced by area rather than by piece.

How not to overpay a carpenter

• Make them name the fault. "What exactly is wrong, and what will you do about it?" A specific answer means they have diagnosed. A jump to replacement without a named fault means they have not.
• Save jobs up. One visit with a list of six small things is dramatically cheaper than six visits. The travel and the call-out are a real part of what you are paying for.
• Get the quote before the work, and get it as a fixed number where you can. Work that starts before a price is agreed is how bills grow.
• Ask what is labour and what is hardware. Two separate lines. You are allowed to buy the hardware yourself, and on channels and hinges it is often worth it — the difference between a cheap channel and a good one is small in rupees and large in years.
• Get a second quote on anything above a few thousand rupees — especially a modular kitchen installation, where quotes vary widely.
• Pay the carpenter directly, after the work. XpertWorker never takes money from you and never holds your payment. You see the job finished, then you settle it with the person who did it.