Please help! Last week we had a new front door fitted by someone we found through checkatrade. The door came glazed but untreated. He primed and then gloss painted for us. It was dark when he left and it looked ok. However, on looking at it in dalylight, I can now see that whilst he used tape around the edges, nonetheless both the primer and gloss red paint have got in behind the glass (I.e. Between the two pains of glass) and it looks terrible. Completely ruins the affect as it looks shoddy and messy. I am absolutely gutted at having spent the money on materials and the labour to end up with a poor quality job that seemingly we can't do anything about. Any advice as to possible solutions would be gratefully received. I can only think of eventually having the door reglazed, or buying sticky backed frosted glass effect stickers to put over the pains but don't really want to do this as it defeats the point in going for totally clear glazing in the first place and is likely to look cheap. No idea what it would cost to reglaze the door - I suspect more than the door itself is worth.
replying to Andy Burns, Lauren Kilpatrick wrote: Hi Andy, thanks for your reply. Sorry you can't see the pics. There is some paint on the outside of the glass (and some remnants of the tape), which I need to scrape off - just haven't got around to doing it. There is also paint on the other (inside) side of the glass, though, which I obviously can't get to.
Paint has run into the narrow gap between the outer glass surface and the wood making a weather seal by capillary attraction. It might have been cosmetically preferable to have used black undercoat or clear varnish as a seal up against the glass so that it wouldn't show.
I don't like using masking tape on windows anyway it just needs a steady hand to paint them properly.
BTW It could do with sanding down and another coat of gloss.
Visible here and some red paint must be on the outside as it would be just about impossible to get to where it has spotted. Should have been left clean though. There is some white substance around the inside edges but is it all paint or some sort of ahesive holding the glass in. Was it a cheap and poorly made door in the first place, if the glazing let in paint that easily then moisture would not be far behind.
The picture clearly shows a very badly painted door, with no attempt to remove the paint that got past his masking tape and onto the glass. There are obvious areas where the grain has raised as the timber has lost moisture, and you can see the incorrect undercoat showing.
Looks like he used a white combined primer+undercoat which is totally wrong for a strong gloss colour like red. The glazing rebates seem to have been badly machined allowing the white primer_undercoat to seep down behind the glass.
The problem is a cheap door *and* a crap tradesman.
Even a competent diy-er would do a better job than that.
Painting an external door from bare wood takes at least three days to do it properly. If you want something installed in one day then use UPVC.
Day 1. Run down using fine sand paper to get rid of raised grain. Apply knotting if timber is resinous and knots are visible. Then seal or prime using an oil based primer, or dulux weathershield (which being water based can only be done when the ambient temp is at least 15 degrees centigrade, and tricky if knotting has been used. Needs another day to dry and gently rubbed down if grain has been raised by the water substrate).
Day 2. Fit door and where hinges and locks have been cut, prime or seal the new cuts !!. Apply undercoat of correct colour to match gloss.
Day 3. Apply gloss paint.
No need to use masking tape. People who do, are only interested in a quick in-out job. People who cannot cut paint up to a glass pane should find another career.
Timber doors for external use really should be bought unglazed and allowed to dry out indoors and then all the joints and corners flooded with clear cuprinol. Leave for a week to dry out and seal or prime the door on *every* (*) surface plus the glazing bars separately. Then follow steps 1 to 3 above.
A decent trademan will have a workshop of some sort where this can be done up to dried undercoat stage before bringing it to your house to cut the hinge and lock rebates.
COMPLAIN to Checkatrade, but don't expect them to do anything.
(*) Always ask if the 'tradesman' if the top and bottom of the door have been primed. If he says 'You shouldn't do this, the door needs to breathe' - Tell him to F$CK OFF right there and then because he is a cowboy.
Have you used a small mirror to check the top and bottom of your door ?. I'll put money on them being bare wood.
NO, its just got behind the wooden beading - its on the outside surface of the glass.
Remove the wooden beading, clean the paint from the glass with a razor blade, paint the inside of the beading you have taken off, wait for the paint to dry and replace beading. Repeat on other side of the door
By the way - s**te paint job - the recommended cowboy could have brushed off all sawdust before painting over it
Clearly the double glazed units haven't been properly sealed when they were installed in the door. They should have been bedded into putty /some equivalent when they were fitted. As they arrived glazed,the fault is with the door manufacturers rather than the the installer. Unless he fitted the glass himself offsite.
The recesses where the glass fits should have been painted before fitting the glass too.
It's normal practice to fit the door, prime/undercoat, THEN fit the glass bedded into sealant and then final coat of paint.
By the looks of it, the primer has seeped between the glazing unit and the glazing bar. (its not between the panes of glass (that is likely a sealed double glazing unit) but it is between the wood and the glass).
While the paint job itself looks fairly poor - in so far as the timber was not rubbed down that well (if at all) first, that is not really the root cause of the problem, which would seem to be the way the glass was fitted and the (lack of) preparation done before.
Who fitted the glass?
Normally most sealed units are manufactured with a margin of black tape around the edge - that means you normally can't see the inside of the glazing bars or any paint on the inside of them. Yours don't appear to have that, so you would always be able to see the back of the bar.
Secondly, the glazing must be bedded onto something to form a seal between the glazing bar, sealed unit and the frame. This could be as simple as a bead of glazing silicone, or sometimes a putty, or a special glazing adhesive sealing tape. (these also increase the security since the unit will stay put even if the glazing bars are removed)
As to how you fix it, I think you would have to remove the glazing bars and take out the glass. Then clean off any paint etc from the glass. I would then paint the inside of the glazing rebate and the back of the glazing bars with clear wood preserver. Then get a roll of self adhesive black security butyl or foam glazing tape and apply that around the perimeter of all the glass sealed units on both sides. Then replace them in the frame and refit the bars.
The tape will then seal between the wood and the glass, and also hide any ugly bits on the back of the glazing bars.
(The current arrangement will allow moisture to seep into the gap between glass and wood, and cause accelerated rotting)
Don't be such an idiot harry. Sealed Double glazed units must *never* be bedded with putty in timber frames. That will cause them to fail very quickly, *and* the frame to rot as many buyers of new houses discovered within a few years of moving in, before the GGF and NHBC got a grip on the problem.
sealed DG units need to be dry mounted in timber frames which have to be sealed correctly first. Double sided butyl tape is applied to the inside edge of the rebate and the dg unit stuck onto this tape using special fibre spacers to stop the dg unit from contacting the frame. More double sided butyl tape is used to fix the glazing bars onto the outside glass pane, and the glazing bars are then pinned into the wooden frame using stainless steel pins.Any gaps are then sealed using clear sealant and the door can then be undercoated and glossed.
What worries me about this thread is that if this is a double glazed door the glazing unit should be sealed so the effect described cannot in fact occur unless its not really a proper double glazed door. Brian
Exactly my point. I'd suggest you have a claim against whoever sold you the door as one would most certainly not expect there to be any way paint could get inside the unit. brain
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