How To Install A Pre-Hung Exterior Door

How To Install A Pre-Hung Exterior Door - Adding Beauty To Your Home At An Affordable Price

exterior doors for sale

If you have decided to replace the existing entrance with a new door unit, then the information I am going to provide in this article will be of great assistance to you.

EXTERIOR DOORS

Today it is easier than ever before to install a pre-hung exterior door unit. Notice, I did not say easy! In the days before pre-hung exterior doors, it took more time, more tools and specialized knowledge to install a door. Door units today can be purchased completely put together and so the term pre-hung was coined.

As a professional door and window installer with more than 20 years of experience, I have installed about every kind of exterior door unit made by most major manufacturers and have concluded that the process is much the same from manufacturer to manufacturer.

1. The first thing you need to do is evaluate the situation from the interior and exterior. Look at the existing exterior door appearance. Does the existing door frame have wood rot from years of rain or poor maintenance? When the door is in the closed position, is it air tight, or does it allow cold air to enter and warm air to escape? With the high cost of energy going higher every day this is a very important part of the equation regarding replacing or repairing the existing entrance.

Here is a tip, to get your correct frame size this is critical and needs to be correct. Carefully remove the existing interior trim around the door frame. After the trim is removed, with pen and paper in hand, measure the width, then measure the height from the under side of door sill to the top of the frame. This is your frame size. If this is new construction, you can use rough opening size; otherwise please save yourself a lot of aggravation and use frame size only.

2. Once this is done, take these measurements to your materials supply store or big box store in your community and match your frame size as close as possible to what they can provide you. Don't forget to order your pre hung exterior door unit with the proper swing as viewed from the exterior. Most door manufacturers recognize left or right hand door swings, as viewed from the exterior.

3. Is it a RH or LH hand swinging door? Is it an in swing, or out swing? Is it going to be prepared for a single or double bore to accommodate your newly purchased lockset installation? Is it a 4 9/16" or 6 9/16" jamb thickness? These are some questions you will be presented with once you arrive at your door provider store.

4. Don't forget the new lockset and the purchase of required material to complete your project. I always try to match and replace the interior trim with new trim whenever possible because it makes for a more professionally installed appearance. However, if you can remove the existing trim without damage and it is still usable, then pull the old nails out from the backside to prevent damage to the face side of the trim and reuse. Exterior pre hung door units can be purchased with or without exterior trim applied as an option.

Tools are necessary and I'm sure you have everything polished up and ready to go. Here are some tools and miscellaneous items I use to complete such a project: a claw hammer, finish nails or a finish nail gun to install interior and exterior trim, cedar shims, pry bar, circular saw, drill driver, miter box, reciprocating saw, caulking gun, one small box 3" screws, level, framing square, drop cloth, caulking, insulation, and painting products. Painting, Ugh, did some one mention painting? This is the final step and something to look forward to before breaking out the champagne and celebrating a job well done.

Reminder: take your time, think about the process before hand, and most importantly, remember to start level. If you start level and place the new frame as close as possible to where your existing frame was, (before it was removed), the rest of the installation will be a piece of cake. Good luck, you can do it!

How To Install A Pre-Hung Exterior Door

Article by: Richard Willis

EXTERIOR DOORS

How to Install a Prehung Door

Hanging a door these days is easier than its ever been. In the days before prehung doors, it took more tools and knowledge to hang a door than it does now.

Imagine getting a door slab, an unassembled door jamb, hinges and door hardware and having to do all the mortising, drilling, rabbeting on site.

MASONITE EXTERIOR DOORS

No longer do you need an array of tools such as a drill, a mortising jig for hinges, strikes, and bolt plate. No jig for drilling the backset for the doorknob and bolt.

Nowadays all you need is a hammer and hard trim nails or a finish nail gun and some shims.

The first thing you need to do is check the opening you'll be hanging the door in for the correct size. It should be 2" bigger than the door size. Even though it's a rough opening it should be reasonably plumb and square.

If the opening was framed by someone else, you may want to break out your level and framing square and check this also. Drywallers sometimes believe the rough opening was meant for them and will let the drywall run into the opening. If this is the case use a drywall saw or sawzall to cut it back.

Once all the vitals have been checked your ready to hang a door. Prehung doors come assembled a couple different ways. They can be bought with trim already mitered and nailed on to one side and without trim. If there is no trim installed, I like to put it on before I put the door in the opening. The trim is installed on the hinge side.

Most doors open into a room and against a wall. When putting the door into the opening, try to put the door in the center of the opening. The door jamb should be able to move to the left and right in the opening. The gap between the door and jamb on the hinge side is usually about an 1/8" of an inch. This dictates the gap or space you should have all around the door. Move the door jamb to the left or right until you have that same space at the top. You then nail the trim on the top hinge side and the bottom hinge side. Then nail the strike side on the top making sure you still have an equal space. Nail off the rest of the hinge side with 3 or 4 more nails. The 2 nails already in the top are all I usually put in. Now nail the rest of the strike side starting at the top and working your way down, maintaining the same space as the top and hinge side.

Once the door is nailed into the opening on the inside, it's time to shim the door jamb. First, pull the door closed to make sure it hits the door stop evenly on the strike side. If it is hitting only at the top pull the hinge side toward you till it hits even. If it hits only at the bottom, push the hinge side jamb away from you till it hits evenly.

Once you get the jamb aligned put shims between the jamb and stud opening, being careful not to bow the jamb into the opening. If need be use a straight edge to keep it straight. I put shims behind every hinge and the strike and also at the top and bottom of the strike side. I nail these shims in with two nails, one on each side of the stop.

The next step is to apply the door casing to the outside of the door. Once this is done, your ready for the door hardware. If everything went right, the bolt should engage the strike plate and the door should fit snuggly against the stops.

(c) 2005 Mike Merisko http://www.sawkerfs.com

How to Install a Prehung Door

About the Author: Mike Merisko has been a carpenter for 26 years. Most of those years were spent in the homebuilding and remodeling industries. He was also in business as a carpentry and general contractor. While that is his forte, he also has experience in bridge building, commercial construction, and exhibit building which is how he earns his living these days. You can browse through articles by him and others at his website http://www.sawkerfs.com

MASONITE EXTERIOR DOORS

Helpful Tips on Installing Prehung Fiberglass Entry Doors

The promise attached to a prehung door, that it is easy to install, is often misconstrued. The idea behind it is not that anyone at all can place the door but that the unit has been designed so that it can be installed with less effort or trouble by someone who knows how to do it, whether a professional installation service or a homeowner with the needed experience in carpentry. What poses a problem is that homeowners usually encounter prehung fiberglass entry doors while looking to make simple home improvements themselves, like getting a replacement front door. This is not uncommon since older front doors made from wood get beaten down by heat and frost, wind and rain, overuse. The thought of having to replace just one exterior door makes it seem like you can do it yourself.

You should have already decided that the door you want is fiberglass. More and more people are looking to replace wood doors with fiberglass doors, and get prehung fiberglass entry doors rather than complex door systems. No one wants to feel stressed out over a door! Fiberglass is a preferable surface material because it resists warping, splitting and rotting unlike wood, plus denting and corrosion unlike steel. It is also believed to be eight times stronger than vinyl and twice than steel. It lasts longer with hardly any need for repair and maintenance. Fiberglass doors can have a wood grain surface and stain finish resembling real wood. It does not conduct heat and insulates up to five times better than wood plus it allows natural light inside homes, thus it is energy-efficient.

MASONITE EXTERIOR DOORS

You should check the usual problem areas prior to installation. In fact, it is not uncommon for D.I.Y. installers to mess up the job just because they did not care to read the manufacturer's instructions. Surprisingly typical oversights on this stage are having the wrong door size, hand or shims. The knob of a right-handed door is on the right, and that of a left-handed door is on the left. The door should be able to swing to the side where you will be standing to open and close it. Your purchase should have thin strips, called shims, for alignment, overhead or airspace, and resistance to premature wear.

You should go through every detail of the installation to determine whether you had better pay a professional or can do it yourself. The process is pretty straightforward with prehung fiberglass entry doors but requires little tricks that only experienced carpenters would know to do. They would make sure the rough opening is plumb, for example, and the floor underneath the sill is level. Imagine that you roll out a carpet and discover there is no space for it! Someone experienced would use a spacer board to give airspace for carpeting or check that the door jambs are touching a smoothly finished floor like ceramic tile, cork or hardwood. Doing a bad job with the installation will certainly cost you. Your door will rub, open by itself or close improperly if it has been placed incorrectly.

Helpful Tips on Installing Prehung Fiberglass Entry Doors

Ward Eichelberger reviews how to get the best from Prehung Fiberglass Entry Doors. Please visit his Fiberglass Entry Doors site for latest news.

MASONITE EXTERIOR DOORS