Exterior Door Upgrade
Boston2022
| Posted in General Questions on
I have a 1940s era wood front door that gets full afternoon sun (however it’s underneath a porch overhang), exterior door temp has been measured over 150F. It has interlocking metal weatherstripping, but I’d still classify the door as leaky with a mailbox slot and 6 small windows. I’ve added a rubber weatherstripping on the outside.
From an efficiency point of view, where does this door rank compared to any exterior doors? Fiberglass, metal, wood, etc. I’d like to upgrade the door, but also don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a door that is marginally better. Is any new door an improvement?
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Replies
From a real estate point of view the original character of this door is almost priceless. Any new door is likely to look out of place surrounded by the original windows and siding and finding a new door that fits the 1940 style of the house will not be easy.
From a dollar and cents point of view replacing doors and windows almost never has a return on investment.
Consider filling in the mail slot but keeping the ornamental exterior trim, upgrading the weather stripping and threshold.
This door is a small percentage of your building’s envelope if the door has an R value of 2 or 10 it is still a rounding error in your heat loss calculation once you stop it from leaking air.
Walta
I tend to agree as well, the door has actually aged pretty well considering it looks like it was just build from framing lumber with some splines holding it together.
If I could take it down for a couple weeks it might clean up nicely. What do people do, throw up plywood or buy a cheap door in the meantime?
If you don’t need to be able to use the door, the cheapest way to go is to cut a piece of plywood or OSB to fit the opening, then tack it in place with some finish nails. If you want to air seal it, painter’s tape is a good temporarily way to do that. Use wire (2”-ish) painter’s tape to make this easy.
If you need a functional door, and you have a square frame, then get a cheap door slab and use that while you’re working on your “real” door. Cheap door slabs can be had for under $100 or so.
Bill
For comparison, a new fiberglass entry door w/ sidelights will run about 5K, 8K installed (2022 prices).