fibreglass entry door

I own a home that has a wooden front door that is not the standard 80" height. I have had to strip and paint this door every few years and am tired of it. I would like to replace this with a fibreglass door. However, I would have to order a special size door and this would run over $700.00. I cannot resize the rough opening due to the fact that the house is a cement block construction. Why it was built without standard size doors is anybody's guess. What I would like to know is, is it possible to get a standard size 36x80 fibreglass door and cut 2" off of the length? Meaning 1" off of both ends. Would it be that detrimental to the structure of the door. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Reply to
Dave
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It sounds as if you do not believe what local door manufacturers tell you -- any particular reason?

Reply to
Don Phillipson

Not sure what you mean by your response, Don. I know this can be done with a standard wood door, but, I have no experience with fibreglass. It was my understanding that these newsgroups were here to share knowledge and that was all I am asking for. If I wanted sarcastic remarks I would have asked my wife!

D>

Reply to
Dave

Dave,

I'm not an expert on fiberglass doors, but here are my observations and opinions from reading and talking on the subject over the years:

I am under the impression that such doors should not be cut or even planed. The doors are not one giant slab of fiberglass. I believe that they are somewhat analogous to the interior slab doors which many of us have encountered: there is an internal wooden structure made up of interlinked wooden pieces. I would guess that the entry door would have some foam insulation between the wooden members, and then a skin of fiberglass is over the entire framework.

I suppose that you are limited to a custom door. You could contact one or two manufacturers and quiz their technical department about the wisdom of attempting to shorten one of their fiberglass doors.

If I may ask, why do you need to strip and refinish your current wooden door every few years? I investigated a steel or fiberglass replacement entry door because of a similar problem with our wooden door. I made a few changes and the longevity of the wooden door finish has improved considerably:

1) I replaced our full-view storm door with a new one which has a built-in screen which rolls down from a hidden mechanism. In the summer we can create a small (2"-3") screened opening at the top of the storm door to help vent "greenhouse" heat. I believe the new storm door was purchased from Home Depot. If not, then it was bought at Lowes. 2) I switched the door color from black to very bright white. I actually used Kilz2 as a finish coat. It reflects sunlight extremely well and it has proven to be quite attractive.

This has helped us in our particular situation very well. The door was getting baked by the sun every day and the dark color plus the full glass storm door were creating extremely high temps. Resin would actually bubble out from the wood and had to be sanded down every

2 years or so. Not any more.

Good luck, Gideon

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Reply to
Gideon

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