First door hanging

[parnelli]

Onward to the next project which was installing a prehung steel door. It's actually the first time I've ever hung a door either interior or exterior.

It's in there temporarily and everything is plumb and level but I'm stuck on two things.

First: The reveal on the HINGE side between the slab and the jamb isn't equal from top to bottom. It's about 1/8 from the top almost to the bottom hinge, but then cuts down to about 1/16 from the bottom hinge to the sill. (ps- the revel on the hinge side is double this amount but even all the way)

Wouldn't the hinge side reveal be 'fixed' by hinges themselves? If I push left or right on the jamb won't the door just move with it? Or am I just too tired to think straight. (no pun intended)

Second, the door is plumb side to side and front to back, but the wall isn't from front to back. This is giving me about a 3/16 difference front to back from the top of the door to the bottom. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I can see that trimming this thing both inside and outside is gonna be a nightmare if I can even figure it out. Should I forget the front to back and just install it flush with the wall?

Seemed like such a simple project.

[cabinetman]

Onward to the next project which was installing a prehung steel door. It's actually the first time I've ever hung a door either interior or exterior.

It's in there temporarily and everything is plumb and level but I'm stuck on two things.

First: The reveal on the HINGE side between the slab and the jamb isn't equal from top to bottom. It's about 1/8 from the top almost to the bottom hinge, but then cuts down to about 1/16 from the bottom hinge to the sill. (ps- the revel on the hinge side is double this amount but even all the way)

Wouldn't the hinge side reveal be 'fixed' by hinges themselves? If I push left or right on the jamb won't the door just move with it? Or am I just too tired to think straight. (no pun intended)

Second, the door is plumb side to side and front to back, but the wall isn't from front to back. This is giving me about a 3/16 difference front to back from the top of the door to the bottom. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but I can see that trimming this thing both inside and outside is gonna be a nightmare if I can even figure it out. Should I forget the front to back and just install it flush with the wall?

Seemed like such a simple project.

What is critical is to make sure the jamb is plum and level to the opening. The trimmer stock may be warped or shimmed out creating the difference in the plum/level of the hinge jamb. Check the slab/sill to make sure it is flat and level. Set up the pre-hung unit in the opening and shim the hinge and latch jamb so the head jamb is level. If at all possible keep the shimming of the hinge jamb to a minimum because it carries the action of the door.

As a general rule, if you adjust spacing closer to an edge, whatever the differential is will be more noticeable than if you split the difference.

[parnelli]

So how about the lean in/out angle? Do I set it plumb/vertical/whatever or do I let keep it equal to the wall itself.

I hope that makes sense to somebody.....it's making less and less to me.

[cabinetman]

So how about the lean in/out angle? Do I set it plumb/vertical/whatever or do I let keep it equal to the wall itself.

I hope that makes sense to somebody.....it's making less and less to me.

Keep it plum and square side to side and front to back. The casing should be flat to the edge of the jamb. IOW, the edge of the jamb has to be out to the edge of the wall at its shortest point. You could hand plane it after installing. The jamb will be straight to the door, but fitted to the wall. That is the worse case scenario. It's harder to fix a quirk there than with a caulk bead between the casing and the wall.

[LarryG]

So how about the lean in/out angle? Do I set it plumb/vertical/whatever or do I let keep it equal to the wall itself.

If I'm understanding you correctly, the wall is out of plumb 3/16" over the height of the door. That's actually not THAT bad for wood-framed construction; if you check around your house, you may find other walls that are just as far out, especially if this is an older house that has settled and moved around over the years.

Typical practice with this small of a discrepancy is to install the frame to match the wall and not worry about it. Obviously one would try to do better than this with new construction, but you're responding to an existing condition. As you've already realized, the amount of work required to correct the problem is going to be all out of proportion to the problem's severity.

Two caveats, however:

1. You should accept that the door will likely try to swing open or closed (depending on which way the wall is out) on its own. This can sometimes be overcome by tweaking the hinges such that they provide enough resistance to hold the door in whatever position you want it.

2. If the top of the door is leaning in, and the door swings in, the corner of the door MIGHT hit the floor during its swing arc unless it has sufficient undercut to provide clearance. You can check this by temporarily affixing the unit into the wall and trying the door to see what happens. Remember to allow for anything that might be on the floor that's not there now (carpet, a throw rug, etc).

[parnelli]

First, hanks LarryG and Cabinetman for your help. That said, I think this is the first house project ever that I'm giving up on. While everyone else on this board could get this thing installed in about 2 hours, I've got nearly 10x that and I still can't make heads or tails of it. So much for saving money.

It's been installed, removed, and reinstalled 3 times and I don't feel any closer to getting it right. The final problem is the top corner on the latch side. Even with the door closed, it doesn't even hit the weatherstripping. If I push on the jamb to get it to touch it throws everything else out of whack.

I bought it at the BORG- I think I might have to give in and see if they'll still install it. Otherwise I think I might as well reserve my rubber room now...

[cabinetman]

Don't get confused. You don't install the door with it leaning in or out, no matter what. Your door comes with a jamb. Before you install it in the opening the door stop/weatherstripping should be taken off, so you have an open opening. You can't install it to fit existing stop. When the door is in, shimmed level and plumb, nail in place. Hand plane the jamb to line up with the wall. When the door is in and swinging fine, then install the locksets. When they have been installed then you can install and adjust the stops to fit the door.

[JimD]

I have done quite a few interior doors but only one metal exterior door like it sounds like you are doing. It's nice when you can cut the door but when you go pre-hung, the casing already will fit the door so it should not need to be cut.

I agree with what cabinetman said but I will try to say essentially the same thing in my words. You want to start with the hinge side of the door. It should only have shims between the jamb and the rough opening to the extent that you have to insert them to get the jamb straight up and down (plumb). I would let it parallel the wall to make putting the moulding on easier but setting it plumb and planning/caulking would also work. If you align it to the wall, it may want to move on it's own, if it does you can make the hinge pins a bit crooked (hit them with a hammer) to make the door a bit harder to move and it probably won't move on its own. Your angle would be small and it will probably be OK without bent pins.

Once your hinge side jamb is plumb, if the door reveal is not even, it is the depth of the hinge mortises combined with the weight of the door. That is not unusual. You probably cannot deepen the bottom hinge mortise on the door but you could on the jamp. Or you could put a little cardboard shim behind the top hinge (or two at the top and one in the middle if you need that much). That should get the reveal in pretty good shape on that side.

Once the hinge side jamb is plumb and the reveal is OK, you move to the latch side jamb. If you just shim it to get the reveal even and acceptable, it should be OK. Then you can put few shims into the top gap just to help hold the door in position. Trim the shims and put on the moulding.

One thing you should do that seems odd at first is ignore the latch side jamb until you get the hinge side set. You cannot adjust everything all at once. If you do one thing at a time and just move through the steps, you will get done.

I forgot to say you have to check the threshold - the area at the floor - to see if it is level. My instructions assume it is. If it is not, you may have to trim the high side jamb or shim the threshold - depends on how much adjustability you have on the threshold weather stripping. If the reveal is right and the door jambs are parallel, the weather stripping will be OK. If the rough opening is such that you have to skew the jambs to get them parallel you have to do that instead of making them aligned to the walls. You can set a long level across the opening and see if the walls on the two sides are parallel. Usually they are but I have one set of closet doors in the basement of our house where the rough framing is wrong and they are not. I set the door jambs about half way between parallel to each other and aligned to the walls. Bad framing sometimes requires these compromises.

Hope this helps.

Jim