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Cheap Doors and Not-So-Cheap Doors
for My Green Home:
A Door Makeover
Full of Interesting Challenges
I confess: I am Ms. Frugality and cheap doors were at the top of my shopping list for this home makeover.
I am also Ms. Recycling, or rather, as I prefer: Ms. Reuse, Rehabilitate, Restore, Repair... you get the idea.
Good doors are expensive. There I was, with a whole collection of perfectly good doors yet everyone assumed I was going to get new doors. Well, I wasn't buying the hype, at least not yet. I had a plan, and I wanted to try it first.
Cheap Door No. 1: The New Entrance
When we rebuilt the sunroom walls (a project which included the elimination of the original entrance of the house) I was able to persuade my builder and his crew to remove the old front door carefully, jamb and all, after ditching the useless ugly storm door that came with the house.
Later that day, they installed it as a temporary main entrance, at the side of the new kitchen-dinette. (That's right, no front door! Around here, only the undertaker uses the front door, as the saying goes, so why bother having one in the first place?)
That was in the summertime. Then came winter, and if I had any doubts as to the need for a storm door, they were quickly dispelled the day I discovered the inside of that door covered with frost from top to bottom, like an old freezer.
Spring came, the siding was applied, then a nice new wooden door jamb set was found, a perfect fit for my nice cheap door. (Okay, it's not quite nice yet! Be patient.)
Here's the builder, preparing the opening. It's 9.30 AM.
The new door jamb is being fitted...
... and by 11.15 the old door was back in place.
Note the new aluminum sill, which is part of the new wooden door jamb set.
Canned spray foam was applied all around, to completely fill the gaps.
Remember to use the right kind of foam! The label should specify if it's appropriate for doors and windows; a certain amount of flexibility is necessary to handle the alternate swelling and shrinking of the materials. (Yes! Steel shrinks in winter, too.)
In this closeup you can see how the foam has been trimmed flush with the drywall and door jamb.
This was done with a hacksaw blade.
A New Green Storm DoorThe following day, a nice high-quality new green storm door was installed.
As you can see here, the storm door came with its own green frame.
Final installation of the new storm door.
This is not a cheap door! I wanted something that would seal very well, but I wanted it to look good too.
I also wanted it to provide ventilation, so I chose the type with a retractable screen (the dull section, at the top, is the screen).
The solid wood door (yes, it will get painted eventually!), with its snazzy new hardware.
One more step: sealing gaps between the storm door and the door jamb.
For this, I used one of my favorite caulking products; it looks like a long flexible foam sausage – here you can see I'm forcing it into the gap with the handle of a spoon.
Here is a close-up of this caulking product.
It comes in different diameters – this is a medium one.
And this is the way my new entrance looks this year.
I still haven't painted the wooden door, but as you can see, I did paint the door jamb, and got a pretty good match of the green color. I think it looks pretty classy.
Next year, the siding will be painted white.
Not-So-Cheap Door: An Energy Star Door for the Dining AreaI'm quite a fan of Home Depot and most of my dealings with them have been satisfactory, but this new Energy Star door was not a cheap door, and it was not a pleasant experience.
The first door they delivered was scratched, extremely dirty and lacking any kind of strapping to prevent the frame from shifting; it also lacked any king of wrapping to prevent scratching. It also opened the wrong way!
The exchange was not a problem... except that they sent the replacement patio door all by itself in this huge truck.
For an eco-nut like me this was very upsetting!
This is what I had expected the new door to look like, with its proper wrapping and strapping – the clean, new door that I had paid for.
Here it is, installed, viewed from the inside...
 ... and from the outside, showing how we sealed the bottom with "Blueskin", an essential step...
... and again, with the siding and a new wooden frame in place.
Note the drip cap at the top. This is a very important element of any door and window installation, to prevent rainwater infiltrations behind the siding.
Here is a close-up of the drip cap, which also shows the caulking between the door frame and the siding.
More Cheap Doors I needed a door for the basement entrance, which is located in the new bathroom. My front door had an identical twin, and it fitted that purpose perfectly.
 The fact that is had a window presented an additional advantage, and a green one to boot: the bathroom itself does not have a window, but the basement stairwell does.
Therefore, during the day the small door window provides all the light I need in the bathroom and I never have to turn on the bathroom light.
To avoid cold air from entering the house from the basement, weatherstripping was applied all around the door jamb and at the bottom too.
By the way, in case you're wondering, there is no risk of lack of privacy: that exterior window is too high for prying eyes on the outside (and the angle is all wrong, anyway).
The remaining doors in the house are also existing doors that have been relocated.
How Did the Doors Perform?After three full seasons: fall, winter and spring, with the different sorts of weather that they bring, and which can affect a home's performance, I'm pleased to report that if I had to do it again I would not change anything. |
