Replacing an exterior door?

Question

I want to move an exterior door in my house from one doorway to another. The door being taken out is 35 11/16 wide. The dooring going in is 35 5/8. Is that enough of a difference to cause problems?

Answer 1

To answer your question plainly, I doubt a 1/16" less in width will give you problems as long as the jamb is weatherstripped (meaning, no chance of daylight or breeze making its way between). BUT...there's a lot more to factor in than just the door's width with what you propose to do. The swing, thickness, door bevel, height, hinge mortises, hinge locations, material (is it wood, fiberglass or steel?), etc., need to be identical if you're trading doors between two existing jambs. The other issue to contend with is that doors tend to wear into their openings and will often need some minor tweaking to make fit properly. This is especially true of a solid wood door. The only way to know for sure (provided the doors are identical) is to just make the swap and see how the door fits and closes. Take off any sweep or door bottom that may be on the door going in; loosen up the hinge butts enough to make them wiggle a bit on both jamb and door, then get some help to fit it in place. Once it's in place, start dropping your pins back into the hinges and then re-tighten everything. Do not force the door closed. If there's any resistance or binding, check to see what's causing it before doing anything else. Good luck with this. If this all seems too much for you to tackle on your own, a lot of door shops will duplicate old doors to fit into existing jambs.

Answer 2

My first answer is no,since you're talking about 1/16 difference,but it depends how much of a gap the old door had in the frame.
Try it and if there is to much space,add a 1/16 shim strip
on the hinge side.plastic (vinyl) ,aluminum or steel.
You could try wood if you're able to get it that thin,but you would have to glue it.
Otherwise some doorseals might do the job as well.

Answer 3

There are so many variables when it comes to doors that 1/16 may have no effect or may be a disaster. do a couple of things, take both doors and lay one on top of the other (hardware removed), see how they line up. are they the same? (square to one another, hinge locations, hardware borings?) if yes go for it. if no I wouldn't. If you do change them out and you have light gaps you can get a weatherstripping kit that will solve your light gap problems.

Answer 4

yes it will.
have a carpenter adjust the width of the door jamb.
if that is an exterior door, heat will escape from that gap bet the door and the jamb.
another option is to add a strip of wood to seal that gap. this would also prevent would be intruders from easily using a card to unlock the door. this deepens the rabet of the door jamb and it would be difficult to maneuver a card to the door knob's strike plate.

Answer 5

Depends what type of door you get, but I believe the average price for a door would be about $150, and to have it installed would be an additional $100.

Answer 6

I wouldn't imagine a 16th of an inch would kill the project-shim out the hinges a 32nd and weatherstrip the stop a wee lil bit on the knob side-good ta go(as long as the height lines up along with the hinges and the lock set etc....)

Answer 7

It could, if the door going in does not have square edges. In other words, if you have a little "step" down each stile, the edges of the door won`t contact and compress the weatherstripping properly.

Answer 8

Follow Dutchies advice and add a trim strip or a shim strip to the back side of (the hinge side) the door. It should work