High threshold for gain
Energy-efficient doors lead to savings
BY JAMES DULLEY Dear Jim: My house has an old wooden front door and a steel back door. What can I do myself to make them more airtight and efficient? -- Johnny W., Dalton Dear Johnny: Many homes have a front door, a back door and a door from an attached garage. Total up the perimeter length of the doors, and you can see how poor-fitting weather stripping can be a major source of energy loss. Before making any improvements, carefully inspect each door. If the wood door is deteriorated or warped, you will have to replace it. Steel or fiberglass doors seldom warp, so they generally can be repaired and upgraded. To make doors more airtight, on a windy day, hold lighted incense near the weather stripping and move it around the door perimeter. The smoke will indicate leaky areas. If they are in just a few spots or only along one side, you will not have to replace all the weather stripping. Push on the door and then check with the incense again. If you're lucky, the only problem is that the door does not close tightly enough to create a good seal.
The easiest solution is to remove the old striker plate and install an adjustable one. There are two basic designs. One design by Door-Tite features a die-cast plate with staggered teeth cast into the hole area. When the door closes, the latch catches on the tooth that holds it most tightly to the weather stripping.
Another design by Mag Security uses a two-piece striker plate with detents on the flat surface. One piece fits against the frame where your old striker plate was mounted. The second piece fits into the latch, contacts and then locks, and can be adjusted over the first piece. For old doors, it's best to replace the threshold seal, and perhaps the entire threshold. Most newer doors have the weather stripping seal attached to the door bottom, but some older ones have the seal in the threshold on the floor, which can get damaged after years of foot traffic. Most thresholds are adjustable. Move the threshold up a little to see if that reduces the draft. If you install a new, efficient threshold seal under the door, you will have to remove the door from the hinges. The new seal may be thicker, so you will have to saw a thin strip off the door bottom. This is fine for wood or fiberglass doors, but not for steel doors, which may require an automatic door bottom seal that moves down to touch the threshold just as the door closes. Old, worn hinges can cause a door to hang crooked, so the weather stripping will not seal well. Most home center stores carry hinges to fit almost any door.
The lowest insulation component in doors is glass. Make a storm pane, using clear acrylic plastic, to cover the glass. Install as you would any storm pane. This will almost double the insulation value and protect the glass from the weather. If you can remove the door molding, check to see if there is insulation in the gap around the frame. If not, spray expanding foam insulation in the gap. Wait until it fully expands and hardens before replacing the molding. The following companies offer door improvement products: Door-Tite, (513) 891-0210, www.doortite.com; Mag Security, (800) 950-9058, www.magsecurity.com; M-D Building Products, (800) 526-5265, www.mdteam.com; Pemko Manufacturing, (800) 283-9988, www.pemko.com; and Thermwell, (800) 526-5265, www.frostking.com. Send inquiries to James Dulley, GEORGIA Magazine, 6906 Royalgreen Dr., Cincinnati, OH 45244 or visit www.dulley.com.
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