Installing doors

The previous entry showed you have we have made our external doors. This time we will show you have we have installed them. However, before installing the doors, we also had to make the door jambs and the door sill. We thought about buying them from a local sawmill that makes them, but at $15.5 per meter for external door sills, we thought it might be better to make them out of framing wood. For the doors that are in strawbale walls we decided to make the door jambs from 90mm x 35mm hardwood (same as the doors) and the door sill from 140mm x 35 mm hardwood.  For the doors that are in a colourbond wall, that is the double doors from the main bedroom and the main entrance, we have made the door jambs out of 140mm x 35mm. This to ensure that the wood sticks out passed the colourbond on the walls.

In order to make the door jambs (i.e. the sides and the top for the door) we just cut out a part of the timber to make a section looking like this (not necessarily to scale):

The door sill was as mentioned made by using 140mm x 35mm and was just planed at one side to get the water to run away from the door - see picture below.

Presumably most people will buy their doors ready made and it should then also come with a door frame that can easily be erected on the spot and have it all done relatively quickly. As we have been making both the doors and the door jambs/sill we did not build the jambs/sill into a frame, but rather we assembled them on site for each individual door.

The following therefore shows the steps we went through to put up one set of French doors:

The door sill is first cut to the correct size then fixed with 5 concrete nails into the slab. We found the slab really hard and therefore predrilled holes that were slightly smaller than the dimension of the nails.

The first door jamb is then levelled and fixed in place using screws.

The third task was to put the hinges on the doors. The rebate was made using a hammer and chisel, then holes predrilled before the hinges were fixed with the screws. We have used stainless steel hinges and 32mm screws on all the doors and hopefully this should make it nice and strong.

In order to fix the door, we then placed the door on blocks just a bit higher then the door sill and at the same time making sure that the hinges were installed with the same distance in from the edge

The door was then fixed with one screw per hinge in order to check that it would open and close well.

The same steps were then repeated for the second door, but before fixing the door jamb, we tested with the door to see that gap between the doors had the right size. This gap will later be covered by a strip of wood on the outside, that also has a rubber seal to stop any air coming through.

Both doors in place

The next step was to install the door jamb. This was made in the same way as the side door jambs but in order to fit it into the doorway, the thicker part was cut to a different length than the thinner part to get a nice and snug fit. After determining the correct position, small blocks of wood were inserted where needed to make it fit well above the two doors.

The final results.

The only thing remaining is to install the door handle and lock, as well as some small strips of wood on the sides and top to close the gap between the door jambs and sub frame (where levelling was needed). This gap will then be filled with insulation and a similar strip of wood installed on the inside. Additionally we have to install the double glazed unit with argon gas when we receive them, which should be in about 3 weeks time.

A picture gallery on the installation of the windows is now available in entry no 90.

Otherwise we have today made up a long list of things to do before we get going on the plaster boarding inside. An initial estimate is that it will take us to the first or second week of July to complete everything before putting up plasterboards, but do not hold us to that date - we just have to see how things progresses.

Cheers for now !

Any problems, please email webmaster. This page was last updated 24/07/2008