Replacing doors in your home can thoroughly convert the look and feel of a room, or make the outside of your house much more attractive. A new door also often has a great seal which will preclude the heat escaping, and hopefully save you money on heating bills.
There are three main types of door:
Door Bottom
- Entry Doors
- Interior doors
- Combination Storm/Screen Doors
In a second we're going to look at replacing an entry (external) door. To replace an interior door many of the steps are the same, just slightly simplified. The locks for example whether won't be used, or will be much simpler. Replacing a composition storm/screen door is basically the same as an entry door, or it can be more complicated. You need to check with your maker for any instructions.
Start by removing the old door
In order to do this you need to open the door and use a wedge to take the weight of the door (at the opposite side of the door jamb). When the door has been removed you should then keep it safe so that you can use it as a pattern to cut the new door.
When removing the door, there are two main options.
Many doors are hung using loose-pin hinges, these are where half of the pin attaches to the door and the other half attaches to the door frame. Both of the halves are joined together by using a pin. You can tap the pin out in order to take off the door.
In older homes the pin may of come to be stuck in, or a dissimilar type of hinge has been used. In this situation you could think unscrewing the hinges instead and then take off the door.
Remove hinge leaves.
You then need to take off the hinges from the door and the frame. You can rule whether you want to reuse the same hinges or use new ones. If you rule to use the same hinges then you can clean them off using sandpaper.
Then install the new hinges to the doorframe. Make sure that you use long sufficient screws to get a secure fixing.
Cut the new door.
You should use the traditional door as a guide when cutting your new door where possible. If the door has warped then you should think about whether or not this is a good idea.
Use a fine toothed saw to trim the bottom of the door. You could also think using a block plane to trim the bottom of a door. The sides can be trimmed using a jack plane.
Prepare new door for hinges.
The first thing you need to do is create the mortises which allow the hinges to fit flush with the outside of the door. You could also use the old door for the pattern to mark the locations of the hinge mortises.
If your door is taller than six feet then you may need to think using three hinges in order to distribute the weight evenly enough. In this case the third hinge should be fitted in the middle of the other two.
Use wood sealant to coat the raw edges of the door and use wood screws to fix the hinges to the door.
Hanging the new door
Fit your door into the frame and insert the top and bottom pins. If it fits ok then close the door and mark the location of the middle hinge.
If you're still seeing for things to do around the house then you may want to think installing a new lockset. I would leave that until another day if I was you! Go and enjoy yourself for now!
Guide to Installing a New Door
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