My massive, 80+ year-old front door is warped. It is not exposed to rain and is about 200cm high and a metre wide. The clearance against the frame varies from practically nill at the bottom to 13mm at the top, with a similar variation along the top, from the hinge to the opposite end. I am trying to find ways to keep the draught out.
Adhesive-backed foam may seem the obvious answer but has been tried and found to be insufficiently flexible, not thick enough for the maximum gap, useful in the mid range but not sufficiently “squashable†lower down. None of the other usual excluders will serve.
I have tried a small piece of UHU White Tack, which seems ideal; filling the gap exactly when the door is shut on it, adhering to the frame but not the door, as is essential, and the squeezed-out excess easily removed with a sharp knife. Black Tack is advertised as being put up as a tape 19mm wide and a metre long and might be easier to apply but has anyone tried using such products successfully for this purpose?
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You'll never fill up such a variable gap with sticky on stuff. You can buy brush type screw on draft excluders that can be lined up to the door.
If the door is worthwhile keeping, maybe even chisel off the stops, and fit new ones to the jambs and head that are flush with the warped door.
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Most of our old doors are warped to some extent, one by about an inch.
I have done as Zero suggests - remove or chisel off the the stop edge etc and reposition to match the door profile.
At least it's only in one direction. There's a famous house in Norfolk (Barton?) which has been sloping into the adjoining broad for centuries, and all the doors and windows have been adjusted over time to accommodate something like a 6" slope end to end.
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The brush type is only suitable for the foot, where it can be fitted to meet the floor. The warp takes the form of long curves so new stops would have to be shaped to fit.
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>> The brush type is only suitable for the foot, where it can be fitted to
>> meet the floor.
Think outside the box, you can get types that screw to the stops
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>> The warp takes the form of long curves so new stops would
>> have to be shaped to fit.
>>
Plane and chisel off the whole length (or just lever off if not moulded into the frame) and bend a separate piece of wooden beading to match the curve.
Then if the door warps any more you can easily re-position it.
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Masking tape the door over 3mm of cardboard, spray with silicone spray. Then inject expanding foam around the door. Wait for it to harden, cut back excess, remove door, paint, replace door.
Caveat: this may not work.
Last edited by: Fursty Ferret on Thu 28 Aug 14 at 10:09
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It is posts like this that make me glad I have a newish (15yo) house built by a decent builder.
In a previous life we owned a large detached pile built in 1913. It was humungous, and we used 5 bedrooms as storage for our business, and the separate double & tandem garages also instead of paying rent on a warehouse. We paid some commercial rates but the saving in time & cost more than justified it.
It was in a not very nice part of the world and we spent 15 years improving it room by room, plus thousands of unpaid hours. It had lovely features... A massive oak front door and lots of little mice carved into other wooden things by Thompson? from Kilburn. Massive stone banks in the cellars and a roof void a giant could walk around in with huge structural beams. But it was a money pit and when we divorced we only just got back what we had paid for it, plus the cost of the improvements, but no more.
Nowadays I work in a DiY shop and am reminded of it most days when customers arrive with constant problems in their big old houses. Nice if you can afford the upkeep. We couldn't.
Apologies for the thread drift.
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>> A massive oak front door and lots of little mice carved into other wooden things
>> by Thompson? from Kilburn.
>>
Robert Thompson - if it's the same person. He carved the pews at Hubberholme Church. The mouse somewhere in the carving was his trademark.
www.robertthompsons.co.uk/
Last edited by: Duncan on Thu 28 Aug 14 at 12:26
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The longer the mouse's tail, the older it is I'm told.
Pat
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Yes that's the chap.
We had mice carved into the front door and the deep canopy over. A serving hatch from kitchen to snug, and both corners of a mantel piece over an open fire. quite twee with the head on one side and the tail appearing a few inches away.
I regret not taking photos, maybe I did, but left the house almost 20 years ago and probably lost in the 'great minimalism life de cluttering project' of the era.
Last edited by: legacylad on Thu 28 Aug 14 at 13:13
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White Tack etc. as draught excluder - Zero
