The filling around my front door needs replacing - what is it?

[none]

My front door is the traditional wooden type. Looking at it from outside there is then a wooden door frame. In between the wooden frame and the yorkshire stone pillars around the doorway is some brick red spongy substance which has cracked and lifted. The previous owner has put some masking tape over the spongy stuff and painted it. That too is now lifting and thats when I noticed what the previous owner had done.

Is this stuff mastick? If so is there a special type of mastick needed to go around a door?

I am not a diy expert. Can I gouge the old stuff out with a hammer and chisel and push some new mastick into the hole or will my door fall out/not close any more if I attempt this myself. 8)

[sPoNiX]

I'd imagine it's brown frame sealant.

[chris French]

No I don't think so.

It sounds like it is some sort of old type of sealan/tmastic used around frames. I had it around the doors and some window frames on my old house (frames were at least 30 years old I imagine)

It's not the same as modern silicone sealant, it has different texture

- slightly 'grainy' maybe and is much harder, though still has softness to it as well - you can poke say a screwdriver into it a bit. I'm sure someone else knows what it is.

anyway, yes it seems to shrink/crack after some time. I scraped mine out and used a modern silicone frame sealant.

No, your door won't fall out, the frame is held in place by nails/screws this is just to make it weather tight.

[Merryterry]

It is certainly not the mastic holding your door in. If it was it would be like the guy who could tell Elephant shit from putty. His windows fell out.

The door, if it is an old one, would have been secured to the opening with good old cut nails.

Make sure that you put some form of backing in the crack before you re-seal. The sealant must only be bonded on two sides to be able to stretch.

[Gertie]

The difference being?

[meow2222]

I thought that sounds like old fashioned mastic too, probably contains red lead. You can gouge it out and replace with any of a number of things: silicone sealant, burnt sand mastic, cement & sand, building adhesive, etc.

Just clean up properly so some toddler doesnt eat the lead and end up in hospital.

NT