space heaters and oddly-sized storm door looking for advice

[William]

Looking for advice and suggestions.

1) I have an old house in Minnesota. There's an upstairs porch and the door that leads to it is 80 by 24 inches. There's no storm door and much air leaks through the cracks around the door. I'd like to get a storm door, but noone makes that size. I went to Menard's and they quoted me for $550 for a custom sized storm door. Anyone know how/where I might get one at a better price?

2) My basement if finished, but quite cold. Any suggestions for strong, good space heaters? I did read about a heater that runs on natural gas, but it's unvented and I read that that's bad for air quality.

Thanks,

Will McGillis

[Don Phillipson]

Assuming the door opens in only one direction, you can for $25 make substantial improvements yourself viz.

-- enlarge the doorstops on all four sides of the door frame so they overlap the closed door by half an inch to one inch. (We assume the outer edges of the door frame are draught-proof.

-- put compressing draught excluder strip on each doorstop, just enough to require an extra pull to shut the door.. You can also cover the door with insulating material. (This may not yield much benefit if the rest of the wall is poorly insulated. But you can shut off the draughts yourself and the first winter will tell you whether it is worth spending more.)

[Evan]

OR --

You could properly weatherstrip the existing door to stop the air leaks for much less than the quoted cost of purchasing a custom sized storm door...

~~ Evan