Exterior doors that swing out FLAT against the wall.

I'm going to install 2 steel 36" doors that meet in the middle for a six foot opening. No door knobs or locks from the outside. Just flat. I noticed that units of this type don't allow the doors to swing all the way flat against the outside wall. Anyone have plans or ideas for doors that do? I'm not exactly sure how to frame these up. I want to be able to tie them (because of wind) back tight during the summer leaving them open most of the time. These need to be well sealed for winter.

Reply to
Andrew Larson
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This is more a question of hinge placement than anything else. The hinge pins have to be at least as far out from the wall as whatever trim you have around the door. Unfortunately, just using a bigger hinge for this affects the way the door swings, which means you'll need a bigger gap at the center where the doors meet. There are little flap/flange things that mount to the inner and/or outer door to cover this gap, but I forget what they're called.

--Goedjn

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I figured this. rather than use brick mold maybe something thinner (1x3) maybe) and cut the frames so the doors are farther out so the butt of a normal hinge is outside my molding. Using a deeper hinge is a problem because I can't calculate how wide the gap will have to be. I suppose an off set block down the outside middle edge of one door that overlaps the gap would work. If this matched the outside trim it might be OK.

I did a quick net search but obviously I'm using the wrong search info because I came up empty.

Reply to
Andrew Larson

Look into offset hinges. They're Z-shaped hinges designed to open doors all the way out of the frame, so that the entire doorway is accessible to a wheelchair, but they should also permit you to open your door flat.

The hinge pin will be exposed, so be sure you have a solution for that, such as a setscrew (possibly something you could do as a mod to an off-the-shelf hinge).

Reply to
Dan Hartung

If the doors meet in the middle you want one of these anyway, because you have to leave room for the door to change size with temp. and humidity.

On the other hand, if the doorway is 72" wide, and the hinges are 1" proud of the door, the the theoretical gap for the outer edge of the doors is about 3/100th of an inch, and for the inner edge it's about 1/3rd of an inch. (assuming you want to be able to open both doors simultaneously).

It's pythagorean theorum, twice times. Find the distance between the center of the two hinge pins on opposite doors, and divide by 2. That's A. Find the distance from the center of the hinge-pin to the outer surface of the door. That's B. You want to calculate the length of the outer edge of the door, C. C is sqrt(A^2 - B^2)

--Goedjn

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