Hanging Interior Door

We will replacing all of the doors in our house.

The current doors were cut very far up from the floor, leaving quite a gap between them and the floor/thresholds below.

When I replace the new doors, I certainly don't want to cut as much off when fitting them. What is the standard amount of space to leave between the door and threshold? Is there a standard?

Thanks!

C
Reply to
C
Loading thread data ...

The standard is, the bottom of the door should clear any area or throw rugs and ww carpet.

If you have forced air heat or A/C with only central returns, many people find a larger gap under the door provides for better air flow wnem bedroom doors are closed. snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

Reply to
HaHaHa

Interesting. I hadn't thought of the AC issue. I'll have to think about that a bit.

Thanks!

C
Reply to
C

The lock is usually located a standard distance from the floor (36 inches if I remember correctly). Unfortunately, floor coverings change and there could be 1 inch maybe more difference in the thickness of floor coverings. Add in a new subfloor covering and it can be even more in an older house.

If you are doing this yourself and buying doors with lock holes already cut, be sure to first measure the distance from the lock to where you want the bottom of the door. It is possible that doors with precut lock holes may place the lock so high that the door bottom will be too high without cutting it. If you buy blank doors (no holes and no hinge mortises) you won't have that problem.

Thresholds? Do all of the doors you have have thresholds? You want the bottom as tight as possible without creating problems. The bottom of the door should just barely drag on carpet, should be at least 1/8 inch above hard surfaces, be

1/8 inch above a threshold without a seal, and will have to be cut short varying amounts depending on the thickness of a seal.

Doors may not hang straight and floors may not be level so measure the clearance as the door swings open and then use the minimum clearance point to determine door length. If you have level and square problems, you may not want the bottom of the door to be at a right angle ore even straight to look good when closed.

Reply to
George E. Cawthon

Good info. I've measured the existing door frames and will need to take very little off of the new doors. I was actually going to measure the top of the door to the hole and compare that to the precut door to see what would need to be taken off the bottom. It may be that I will need to take a little off either end or possibly shave both ends a little. I can work it out once I clamp old and new together.

A lot of our doors have small thresholds (tile to wood laminate). Even when we closed the door on what was there when we bought the house (tile to regular pile carpet with a window sill slab of marble as a threshold - I've never seen that before.. very strange), the door was still cut high. From the regular carpet, we went to berber and no threshold and then when we redid the all of the floors in the house shortly after and went the tile/laminate combo (not a stitch of carpeting in the house), the gaps bigger still. So, already big gaps became even bigger when we got rid of the marble under the doors and then removed the carpeting altogether.

Any good suggestions for cutting the hinge mortises or should I just use the tried and true hammer and chisel? I sometimes find out about time- or effort-saving tool =after= I've done the job. With as many doors as I need to replace, I'd like to find out about it before I begin.

Thanks for all of the good info!

C
Reply to
C

Well they make several things. One is a router template you set to your hinge spacing and clamp it to the door then rout out the mortise for all the hinges at once.

They also make the same kind of thing to do one at a time, and a hinge marking chisel. That has a 3 sided chisel you set and it marks the outline of the mortise and the depth.

But if all you are trying to accomplish is to delete a gap you might want to consider other options. They make a door bottom that will slip over the bottom edge of the door. Also you might want to just add a strip of wood to the bottom and repaint the doors. Another option is to consider a pre-hung door. All you do is strip out the old casing and plumb and level the new one and everything fits, assuming you can plumb them.

Reply to
Roger Shoaf

All good suggestions. I don't have a router, but I will definitely look into the mortise chisel. I think I've actually seen one of those.

I had thought about adding a strip of wood to the bottom of the doors, but we also wanted to update the look a little by replacing our current slab doors with the newer raised panel variety. As for painting, that's another issue altogether. The previous owners painted latex over oil without priming or sanding - and we know what happens then. They also used a roller so the doors have a roller texture on them. I'd rather just install the new doors and paint them properly.

Reply to
C

From many years experience. I agree with Rodger the best, cheapest, and quickest way is to install prehung doors. No trying to match hinge mortises and lock locations and no plaining new edges to fit old jambs.

Reply to
calhoun

I second this! Just rip out the old, and slap in a new pre-hung. That is, assuming the rough openings are standard size! Life is too short to screw with cutting mortises for hinges, drilling for locksets. I have done both way, pre-hung wins! Greg

Reply to
Greg O

Easiest, maybe, but I would definitely not say the cheapest. A prehung door costs a little more than double what just the door itself costs. Then there's the matter of regrouting around the casing, touching up any paint that I mess up around the moulding, accidental damage to the surrounding floor, etc. Each method has its pros and cons. If I had carpeting all around, I'd probably be more inclined to go that route, but I think any extra time involved in hanging the doors themselves will pay off in less work. I'm not in a hurry either. If I do one door every couple of weeks, that's fine. I have plenty of other things to do around here.

Reply to
C

I think that while yanking everything out and putting in a prehung door may look like the quickest method at a high level, as always, the devil is in the details. There are still other considerations. I would still have to score the paint around the moulding on both sides, pry off the moulding while being careful not to create any damage to the walls, the paint, the floors, etc., put in the new door - and this includes cutting down the new case moulding as required to fit over the wood laminate in the bedrooms, regrout, caulk around the moulding, touch up the paint, and deal with the extra debris and cleanup. Plus, it's easier to transport 8 doors at one shot than to transport prehung doors two at a time.

I can buy doors that are predrilled and there will be little to trim off the doors themselves. Isn't it also easy to lay the old door on top of the new one, match up the lockset holes, clamp them together, lop off what needs to be removed and chisel out three small areas? I actually think that's a lot less work than putting in a new prehung door. I hung two doors in my previous house and it really wasn't that much trouble.

C
Reply to
C

On 1/1/2005 9:45 AM US(ET), C took fingers to keys, and typed the following:

I replaced 6 luan interior doors with paneled doors using this method.

formatting link
down to "Installing a New Door in an Existing Frame" My biggest problem was mortising for the hinges. My hinges had round corners and it was harder to cut and chisel the rounded corners

Reply to
willshak

And you get to buy a Sawzall. Really, this will save the cost of the saw if you are doing a lot of doors.

charles

Reply to
Charles Bishop

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.