Storing internal doors

Hello,

I've just bought 7 internal doors from the local shed and plan to hang these over the next few months, yes it will take me that long!

At the moment they are in the garage but maybe I should store them in the house instead, what do you think?

Also on the doors it says they are produced from kiln dried timber and must be completely sealed with paint or vanish before hanging. Now due to space constraints and the time of year I had planned to hang them and then paint. What do you think are the consequences of doing it this way?

Thanks,

Graham

Reply to
Graham Jones
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Yes, preferably in the rooms where they are going to be used.

That's to cover their 'bums' if the doors warp - all I've ever done is hang them first and then decorate. As long as you decorate *both* sides and edges of the door after hanging, then all will be well - as for the top and bottom edges, leave them undecorated (unless you're a purist). :-)

As a matter of interest, hanging the doors before decorating is far kinder on the sharp edges of the tools that you will use to hang them - they will stay sharp for longer.

Brian G

Reply to
Brian G

And I think you're supposed to store them flat, too (which could be interesting stored one per room!)

David

Reply to
Lobster

Room permitting? lay them all flat on top of each other and put an old door on the top then put a lot of heavy objects evenly spaced on top of the old door.

Reply to
George

Thanks for all the replies.

Graham

Reply to
Graham Jones

If room is not permitting indoors, and you have to store them in shed or garage, lay them flat with battens beteen them, so air can circulate. Bring them indoors a week or more before you plan to hang them.

Regards Richard

Reply to
geraldthehamster

... but not whilst plaster, screed, or any other building material is still drying out.

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

Brians advice is spot on. The doors are likely to be of sh*te quality if they were cheap however - so nothing you can do will improve that.

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

You don't have to be a purist to seal the tops and bottoms. You just have to appreciate that that is where the most of the moisture goes in and out.

Reply to
Stuart Noble

That's not a problem Stuart and it really doesn't affect internal doors - or even front and back doors for that matter.

The only major problem I've ever come across is when the outside of a number of flush front doors were brought up to gloss and the inside (the tenants were supposed to gloss these themselves) were left in primer for several months - and the damn things 'bent' inwards in the shape of a "c".

After calling in the door makers rep and the paint companies rep and after having a long and sometimes skeptical discussion with them, they finally convinced me that the problem was in fact the single coat of gloss on the outside.

Still being skeptical, I did another batch of six doors, had three glossed as normal and glossed both sides of the other three and yes - they were right, the single-side glossed again bent, and other three stayed 'straight'.

As a matter of interest, the subject of painting the tops and bottoms arose, and both reps were not unduly worried if they were left unpainted.

Now ledged and braced doors are a different matter!

Going back to the painting of the tops and bottoms, whilst the top is easy enough to do on most occassions, a painter (or firm) are hardly going to go to the trouble (or cost) of removing and rehanging a door at least twice just to paint the bottom of the thing - unless of course they have been instructed to do by their clients (and their prices adjusted), are "purists" or extremely ardent D-I-Yers.

Long winded, but I think it deserved an explanation and may well open up a discussion by some of the professional painters lurking here.

Brian G

Reply to
Brian G

Water vapour comes and goes mostly via the end grain so, if you were serious about sealing a door, you'd hardly overlook the top and bottom.

The direction taken by timber as it loses or gains moisture is largely predetermined by the grain pattern. Enormous strength and tensions that are not going to forced in the opposite direction by a coat of paint

Reply to
Stuart Noble

As sceptical as I was Stuart, but in the case of front and back doors, there are different temperature/humidity levels on both side of the doors that helps cause the problem - and that's from the experts - and unfortunately, when I retired from my job, I had to leave all the written technical information from their research arms with the firm - it really was quite a thick file and caused a major shift in external door painting policy with the client department.

With *proper* door construction, there is very little "exposed" end grain surface that would 'soak' enough water to cause problems on internal doors - and even on external ones - apart from the ubiquitous L & B doors, which I've seen expand and contract over half an inch in their width in a couple of days. As a matter of interest, wood only swells/shrinks over it's depth and width - never in its length.

BTW, even painting a door 'all round' will *not* guarantee that it will never move after fitting.

With regards to "tensions" - timber as a 'living item' if not properly seasoned, will bend, twist, swell and shrink even in 'dry conditions' and at different times of the day - it's just one of those things.

It's an interesting sight to see a 'dry and dead straight' lump of 9" x 3" go through the old ripsaw and watch the 3" x 3" cut piece bend almost into the shape of a propeller as the stresses are relieved - and the smell of the

*resin* is amazing.....

Brian G

Reply to
Brian G

Just the ends of the stiles, and from there it's a short hop to the end grain of the rails. And we're not talking about water here, but water vapour, the air that's around it the whole time.

Indeed. It's virtually impossible to seal a door unless you coat the tenons and the insides of the mortices as well. Vapour travels freely through gaps that we regard as tight, and fairly easily through paints and varnishes.

"Seasoning" really just means gradual drying to a particular moisture content. If that corresponds to the ambient conditions where it's going to end up, you can make something out of it and be reasonably confident it won't move. In today's homes that means kilning.

Then you really do need a riving knife :-) Plantation timber has taken a lot of the guesswork out of this. Trees grown on flat ground with equal access to light produce uniform and predictable timber. It sounds like your 9x3 might have come from a mountain side

Reply to
Stuart Noble

Not enough vapour internally to even bother with - unless the property has been flooded and left empty for a few weeks. And if there were, you would see other joinery suffering as well.

Unless you use the paint as a glue [1], you cannot coat the mortice and tenons - besides, if the tenons are 'stopped' [2] then that theory is irrelevant.

With regards to "vapour" see above.

I know exactly what "seasoning" means. You can:

1 - Wet season it - throw it in a river with the end of the log tied and pointing upstream to get the sap out quickly - and then leave on the river bank to 'air dry' before conversion - and after conversion, use the following method. (It's supposed to shorten the seasoning time [theoretically]) 2 - Air season it - stick the converted timber in a well ventilated, covered area with 'stickers' between each piece and await a year or two for nature to do its work - after leaving the unconverted logs to partially air-season outside either where they were felled, or in the saw-mill yard for a while. 3 - Kiln Season - stick it in an hot oven for a short while and effectively 'kill' the timber if it's not properly done.

Wouldn't even use a table saw without. I've been too well trained (my apprentice master wasn't afraid to give me the odd whack when I did something wrong). :-)

Plantation timber is not always the best - as with any other 'forced' growing.

There are certain timbers used in stress grading that thrive from this method though, as it produces some very straight grained and knot-free stock.

From Russion forests at the time - even had the saw hit the odd piece of shrapnel and bullet head - this btw is perfectly true for the mid to late

1960's timber that was growing during the last war. [1] - In some damp conditions and and things such as FLB gates, tenons can be coated in gloss paint in an attempt to lengthen their lives (and act as a glue). I have never had much success with this and abandoned the method early on. You can also mix gloss with linseed oil putty to get it to harden fairly quickly and ready for painting. [2] - Not all doors have 'through' tenons in this modern age - and the door construction suffers from it. Many door stiles and rails are even joined with dowels now and I personally have refused to fit these - and I certainly wouldn't buy them for my own use.

Brian G

Reply to
Brian G

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