Changing an Exterior Door and Adding a Large Doggy Door
Bob and Kathy recently rented a home and they had a couple of larger dogs, they needed a super size doggy door,
The owner of the home allowed them to remove the curent door and install a door and doggy door into a newly purchased door,
Sound easy?, or maybe not….
When changing a door (slab), but, not the jamb, there are some important steps one Must!, follow,
A door slab doesn’t come with the hinge cut outs or the knob and deadbolt holes, but with the right measurements they can be easily added to the order,
The measurements and information one will need are the top of the door to the top of each hinge, the size of the hinges, the top of the door to the top of the lock and deadbolt holes, the radius of the hinges, (i.e. 1/4″ radius) and the correct swing, ( i.e. right hand inswing), this will determine what side the hinges are on and which way the door swings,
Providing all this info, for example to Lowe’s or Home-Depot, will save alot of time and less room for error when it comes to the hinge cut outs and the pre-bored holes for the lockset hardware,
Unfortunately some times the standard door slab size height may need to be adjusted to fit the opening, there’s little wiggle room on the width since the hinges and holes are pre cut/bored,
Incidentally, adjusting the heght will only work on a solid wood door, that’s not embossed, weather stripping will be added to the bottom, after the height has been adjusted,
In the case with Bob & Kathy, about an 1 1/4″ needed to be removed from the bottom of the new door slab, the best way to determine the correct height is to lay your old slab on top of your new slab, marking the cut that needs to be made, use a t-square if available,
**note..remove all the harware from the old slab before laying it on top of the new slab for measuring purposes,
Use your circular saw to make the cut,
Now…time to install the doggy door,
Take your doggy door template and tape it to the door, the doggy door instructions will inform which size holes to drill in the corners to get your jig saw in there, I prefer to start cutting the opening with my jig saw, away from the corner, and then using my circular saw to complete the cut, because on large doggy doors, the runs are straight,
**note..on smaller doggy doors a jig saw works best because of the bends in the cut,
In most cases the holes for the doggy door screws will need to be marked or pre-drilled,
Once the doggy door has been installed, install the bottom sweep weather stripping that came with the door, please note the correct direction, by looking at the old door slab that was just removed,
Install the old hinges onto to your new door with pre cut hinge cut-outs, use a piece of wood or pry bar to suppot the bottom of the door wile the hinges are srewed into the jamb, reinstall your old hardware, paint your new door, and your,
Good to go!
gojoehandyman.com
