Replacing a front entry door - build vs buy, what hardware, what wood species, etc

[andrew whicker]

What would be gained by building your own jamb?

Sincerely asking. The local contractor stores make a primed door jamb ready to go with rubber seals, hinge machining, and aluminum threshold at whatever width I want.

If I was building a custom door I might tell them to spare the hinge cut outs and maybe buy all the parts (header pc, side pieces and threshold) separately to build on site. Contractor stores can get in a hurry and miscut hinge pockets or use tooling that isn't sized perfectly, etc

Jambs aren't too complicated (obviously) but the rubber seal groove might be difficult. I'm sure they just sell a cutter specifically designed for it though. The door jambs also come with a matching cut out for the threshold.

This is of course painted. If it was stain grade you may have to build your own regardless.

The brick molding and interior trim would be more fun to spend time on, imo

[John TenEyck]

Exterior door frames, or what some call jambs, are not at all difficult to build. It's normally just 1-1/4" lumber into which a 1/2" rabbet is cut on the table saw. The vertical cut is cut 1/2" deeper than the horizontal cut, the resulting groove is what the Q-lon seals press into. Easy stuff.

You don't need a shaper and associated tooling to make doors. No one had such things 200 years ago. A table saw and router or mortiser is more than enough. A slab door is even easier, but I'd just buy a premade one if that's the design (?) I wanted. There are a lot of things to consider when building a door, but it's all doable. The tolerances on typical wood exterior door units I see are not all that good. The ones I've made are certainly better. I would not have a storm door over any door I made. Your location doesn't get sun, so you could add one, but why cover up its beauty? The insulation gain is minimal.

Most people will tell you to use solid wood, and there's nothing wrong with that, but stave core construction with veneer skins is every bit as stable and cheaper to build if you're not counting your time. It will be a flat as you build it and will stay that way.

You can spend as much or as little on hardware as you want. Quality hinges will assure the door opens/closes easily for decades. The lockset? Sure, quality units function better, but don't think about them as relates to security. Not many people are going to kick in your front door when there are less visible places to break in. If security is a concern get a security system or a big mean dog.

You can order insulated glass units of any size needed. I've never used them, preferring to make my own two pane system with tempered glass. Any benefit in R value of a sealed unit is minimal since all glass is a lousy insulator.

If you want to make your own door unit and have fifty or a hundred hours to spare, go for it. Great satisfaction in doing so.

John

[Jared Sankovich]

Sincerely asking. The local contractor stores make a primed door jamb ready to go with rubber seals, hinge machining, and aluminum threshold at whatever width I want.

I've never come across that before.

[John TenEyck]

What would be gained by building your own jamb?

Sincerely asking. The local contractor stores make a primed door jamb ready to go with rubber seals, hinge machining, and aluminum threshold at whatever width I want.

If I was building a custom door I might tell them to spare the hinge cut outs and maybe buy all the parts (header pc, side pieces and threshold) separately to build on site. Contractor stores can get in a hurry and miscut hinge pockets or use tooling that isn't sized perfectly, etc

Jambs aren't too complicated (obviously) but the rubber seal groove might be difficult. I'm sure they just sell a cutter specifically designed for it though. The door jambs also come with a matching cut out for the threshold.

This is of course painted. If it was stain grade you may have to build your own regardless.

The brick molding and interior trim would be more fun to spend time on, imo

For a painted door, nothing. For a frame and panel door that's not painted, however, a lot, since you can use the same species wood for the frame to give a consistent look to the whole project.

As I said elsewhere, you don't need a special cutter for Q-Lon weather seals. You cut the slot for them at the same time you cut the cheek of the rabbett in the frame members. You could do the same on a pre-built frame by disassembling it.

John

[Bill Dufour]

My wife loved it when I replaced the front door with a nice steel one with a window. Then she put magnets on it inside and out. Does not work since we moved and now have a nice fiberglass door.
BillD

[Holmes Anderson]

I was just making window sashes today and I think the same practical limitations apply to exterior passageway doors. They are not terribly difficult to build with proper tooling and you can make good quality windows and exterior passageway doors at a lower cost than the mass produced alternatives. However, it will be difficult to match the thermal insulation and air tightness of the mass produced alternatives. Speaking only for myself, I would only install my shop-made exterior doors and windows on seasonal homes and sheds. I think there was a New Yankee Workshop episode for building an exterior passageway door that covered some insulation techniques, but codes have changed a lot since then.

[Kevin Jenness]

I was just making window sashes today and I think the same practical limitations apply to exterior passageway doors. They are not terribly difficult to build with proper tooling and you can make good quality windows and exterior passageway doors at a lower cost than the mass produced alternatives. However, it will be difficult to match the thermal insulation and air tightness of the mass produced alternatives. Speaking only for myself, I would only install my shop-made exterior doors and windows on seasonal homes and sheds. I think there was a New Yankee Workshop episode for building an exterior passageway door that covered some insulation techniques, but codes have changed a lot since then.

I have to disagree on both counts. You can beat the cost of production millwork only if you ignore the cost of your labor. That works for a hobbyist, but if you have ever priced out custom door and window work you will see what I mean. On the other hand, there's no reason why you can't match or beat the thermal performance of a similarly constructed factory built wood door, and you can certainly improve on the typical dowel/unglued cope joinery.

[Holmes Anderson]

I have to disagree on both counts. You can beat the cost of production millwork only if you ignore the cost of your labor. That works for a hobbyist, but if you have ever priced out custom door and window work you will see what I mean. On the other hand, there's no reason why you can't match or beat the thermal performance of a similarly constructed factory built wood door, and you can certainly improve on the typical dowel/unglued cope joinery.

I agree about the cost of labor but I don't build many and look at it as a choice between unproductive time and inefficient productive time. On the performance issue, do you have plans for an insulated door with frame that can be made in a small shop and not cause problems with a 3 ACH blower test? I haven't attempted to build one but it seems like that would be difficult.

[Kevin Jenness]

I agree about the cost of labor but I don't build many and look at it as a choice between unproductive time and inefficient productive time. On the performance issue, do you have plans for an insulated door with frame that can be made in a small shop and not cause problems with a 3 ACH blower test? I haven't attempted to build one but it seems like that would be difficult.

No, I don't specifically. I was comparing more typical traditional designs. I have built some insulated doors from 2 1/4" to 3" thick using calibrated foamboard laminated with Extira or marine plywood and shopsawn veneer. They would probably have to be double rabbeted and triple sealed to meet the infiltration requirements of 3ACH50. I haven't been faced with that requirement but it's certainly a good goal and I assume more manufacturers and custom builders will be trying to meet it as code requirements advance.

I suspect the traditional stile and rail design is not the best suited for heavily insulated doors. There may be suppliers of composite materials for that purpose, probably in Europe, and perhaps Joe Calhoon knows of such. I have used foamboard between wood panels for better performance. but the joinery in foam core stiles and rails would be problematic. A better approach for that traditional look might be to clad a sandwich as described above with a stile and rail "applique". In any case, I suspect that sealing against infiltration and triple glazed ICUs are more fundamental to high performance doors than the raw R factor of the composite panel. Just my $.02, I am not a door specialist, rather a custom woodworker who has built a fair number of doors.

For reference, here's the website of a custom door builder working to passive house standards, with entry door prices starting at $10k. https://hammerandhand.com/about/our-approach/ Also, an exploded view showing their construction method https://hammerandhand.com/wp-content...Spec-Sheet.pdf and some videos on the subject https://hammerandhand.com/field-note...-video-series/

I would say that if you have successfully built traditional doors and windows there is no reason why you couldn't build high performance versions. For doors you would need some kind of press. In any case the labor cost will be higher than units built in a production setting.

The shop I used to work for often builds doors along with cabinets and other millwork. They are moving toward more elaborate weatherseal systems than we used to do a few years back. I saw a couple of drawings today, one with a single-rabbeted door with two flipperseals and another using two shallow rabbets with one flipperseal and two small tubeseals. I will say that subjectively a well-fitted square edge door with good flipperseals seems to seal pretty well, but a blower door test will bring out the truth. Flipperseals are pretty tolerant of movement and moderate warpage whereas small tube seals and edgeseals are less so.

[John TenEyck]

You can buy a fair amount of natural gas or electricity for the difference in a door that costs maybe $2K to build vs. one that starts at $8K. Just for grins let's consider a door that's 3 ft wide and 7 ft tall. The top end Hammer and Hand door has an R value of 14. For where I live with 6100 deg days of heating, the seasonal heat loss through that door, excluding leakage, will be about 220K BTU. Natural gas costs about $16/1000 BTU's where I live, so the fuel cost for that door is $3.50. Now consider a solid wood door with an R-value of 1. The fuel cost for that door is 14x higher, or about $50. Even over 30 years the fuel cost will be only about $1400 more for the solid wood door.

Maybe there are good reasons to build thermally efficient doors, but fuel savings alone can't be the driving factor to buy one, at least not for me. You get to the same conundrum if you look at the cost of tankless water heaters over conventional. The $'s just never make sense.

John

I just realized the R-value of wood is about 1/inch, so if the door is 2" thick the fuel cost would be half of what I calculated, or $25/year, or an additional $645 over 30 years compared to the best H and H door.

[Joe Calhoon]

Kevin, agree the labor cost will be higher in a custom shop building these but with care you can achieve good performance results far better than most mainstream mfgs. The trick is avoiding the typical North American construction of square edge single gasket construction and aluminum threshold. All the good sealing gaskets, thermally broken sills, multipoint locks, hinges etc come from Germany, Italy Austria. Insulated cores of all types are available there but costly to source here. Dan Palmer of H&H was at the Alpine workshops several years ago and since have developed some good door building systems.
Double and triple rebated doors are not that difficult to build even with simple tooling. In the Alpine Workshop we show how to make 78 and 92mm thick double gasketed door edges just using the Multiuse cutter in several settings on the shaper. Easy on a programmable shaper but also possible on a conventional shaper with skilled setups. I have dedicated heads for my own work but use this method sometimes for custom thickness.
the Fenesterbau and Bau shows in Germany are the best for high quality, thermaly efficient door and window building.

here is a Instagram link showing building a historic mahogany door then sample euro door sections at the end.

https://instagram.com/p/Ca493j3LOad/

F28064F6-63B0-44AC-8624-12363DE960A6.jpg
D2FCC549-1063-4163-80B4-26C443F968AC.jpg

[Kevin Jenness]

Kevin, agree the labor cost will be higher in a custom shop building these but with care you can achieve good performance results far better than most mainstream mfgs. The trick is avoiding the typical North American construction of square edge single gasket construction and aluminum threshold. All the good sealing gaskets, thermally broken sills, multipoint locks, hinges etc come from Germany, Italy Austria. Insulated cores of all types are available there but costly to source here. Dan Palmer of H&H was at the Alpine workshops several years ago and since have developed some good door building systems.
Double and triple rebated doors are not that difficult to build even with simple tooling. In the Alpine Workshop we show how to make 78 and 92mm thick double gasketed door edges just using the Multiuse cutter in several settings on the shaper. Easy on a programmable shaper but also possible on a conventional shaper with skilled setups. I have dedicated heads for my own work but use this method sometimes for custom thickness.
the Fenesterbau and Bau shows in Germany are the best for high quality, thermaly efficient door and window building.

here is a Instagram link showing building a historic mahogany door then sample euro door sections at the end.

https://instagram.com/p/Ca493j3LOad/

F28064F6-63B0-44AC-8624-12363DE960A6.jpg
D2FCC549-1063-4163-80B4-26C443F968AC.jpg

Thanks, Joe. If I do any more entry doors they will have two sets of gaskets, but the rabbets will be cut with a router on the door and built up on the jamb. Good point about thermally broken metal sills- most of mine have had wood sills. Passive house standards will call for milking the law of diminishing returns for every penny, but I think the low hanging fruit is in better air sealing. Thanks as always for your perspective, informed as it is by the European industry standards.

[Joe Calhoon]

Kevin, nothing wrong with white oak thresholds. That’s my go to even on the euro doors. I have a dislike for aluminum. I have some in stock from Europe and use them if the client requests. Aluminum does not age well.

[mreza Salav]

Nowhere near the experience of others here but I built our entry door (system) back in 2014 (documented here) and I loved the outcome. Although wooden doors take quite a bit of time and care to build and also require regular maintenance, I like the look of them and especially when it's the result of your own work.
I don't have a well equipped shop and the door (42"x96"x2.25") was built using router bits and out of Honduran Mahogany. Plan ahead all the weatherseals and hardware you want to use well in advance.