Exterior door measures 35.5" wide. I assume this is a nominal 36" door? Or, a bastard size acquired by developer when the home was built?
(A neighbor's door is 31.5" wide which I would assume qualifies as a 32" door]
FWIW, my exterior doors measure 36". The doorway openings (weatherstripping to weatherstripping) are 35.5".
I have no idea how my neighbor's doors measure up. ;-)
Thank you, that's exactly the answer I was looking for. I.e., that doors aren't like "dimensional lumber": nominally a particular size (e.g., 2x4) but, in actual fact, somewhat smaller (1.5x3.5).
Seeing ours at 35.5, checking a neighbor's (different floor plan, different building construction, different "nominal size" door) seemed a quick way to the truth.
I'll bring a tape rule with me tonight and ask friends if I can measure theirs to see if the pattern extends to all homes in the neighborhood (the area was developed in two very distinct time periods), all homes of particular styles/floorplans, all homes by a particular *builder* (I think three different developers were involved), etc.
A sample size of TWO (out of two examined) undersized doors isn't very conclusive...
Take your tape to Home Depot or Lowes. What size are those doors? (the ones for sale, not the ones you walk through at the front of the store)
That will tell me what they *sell* but won't explain why the two doors I observed (different homes, different widths, different construction techniques) are "off". I would find it hard to swallow that an architect drafting (at least) two different plans had to resort to trimming 1/2 inch off of doors in each case.
Did *he* not know what standard door sizes were?
If I can't buy a 35.5" door, then I'll have to alter the frame to accommodate the slightly wider door (a fair bit of work).
why not trim the door down by 1/4 inch on each side>
You haven't mentioned the height of the doors, either.
Hard to trim METAL!
You didn't say if you were looking for a pre-hung door or just a slab or a slab and a separate jamb.
Whenever I have ordered pre-hung doors I gave them the RO measurements and they told me the maximum size door that will fit that RO. Since the doors are pre-hung, they use the RO measurement to determine the size, factoring in the width of the jamb.
Granted, I haven't bought a door from a home center, I go through a local contractor supply house where I know sales person. In any case, the RO measurement is a better number to use than the width of an existing door. I'd be surprised if even a home center staff didn't ask for that measurement. Once you know that options based on that number, you can decide the best course of action.
For the basement steel door, the custom size I needed (height-wise) was way more than I wanted to spend, so I ordered the next taller size, slapped a metal cutting blade in my circular saw and let the sparks fly.
No, it's not. BTDT
I'll rephrase...It's not hard to trim metal - in general - but it might be hard to trim the *width* of a metal door.
My BTDT referred to trimming the height of a steel door.
You will find they are all going to be a half inch smaller than the nominal size
If all doors are 35.5, then you have determined that a nominal 36 door is actually 35.5.
I find it unlikely a custom door is a half inch different.
This website has a lot of good information:
I tend to think that Don is either asking the wrong question or hasn't provided enough information.
If he plans to replace just the door itself, then maybe his question is OK. If he is planning on replacing the door and the jamb, then I think that he should determine the RO measurements and then shop for a pre-hung door armed with that information.
For a pre-hung door, he could measure his actual door and the actual doors of every one in his neighborhood and still not know what to buy for his house.
Then why is *bob's* (upthread) 36" (presumably closer than half an inch to 36!)
That was the point of *asking* -- instead of surveying the entire neighborhood!
Bob's upthread assertion that *his* door is 36 inches suggests either *his* is the oddball (being EXACTLY "as advertised")
*or* mine at 35.5 -- and neighbor's at 31.5 -- are the oddballs!I find it hard to believe that an architect (multiple architects?) drafting plans for different homes (floor plans, construction techniques, etc.) would be off by 1/2 inch "more than once".
So, did the builder (or, ONE of the builders in this subdivision) get a deal on oddball doors? Did the carpenters and masons screw up reading the plans? Have door dimensions changed over the years? etc.
Now, it's a "local" *puzzle*! I'll have to see how extensive the "problem" is among my other neighbors' homes (I walk past all of them each day; I *don't* drive to Home Depot every day!)
Excellent! Thanks!
Though this was discouraging: "There are still plenty of homes that were built in the age of full sized lumber. These are the ones that are fun to fix-up."
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I guess the author and I have different ideas of "fun"...
I think he is talking about the door panel itself and all of the ones I measured here are a half inch smaller than the nominal size. That includes original 55 year old doors in this house, some 20 years old and one that is only a few years old.
If (new) doors -- prehung or slabs -- are 36 inches wide, then I have to replace the jamb. And, that might entail changes to the buck, as well.
So, knowing EXACTLY how wide a door is becomes an important detail.
Dunno, I just checked the 36" door that I am using for a work bench and it is 36 but my 32" doors are all 31.5. I guess Reagan was right, trust but verify.
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