Maybe you call it a screen door, or storm door, whatever, but I have a new one. Almost.
Our house used to have one of those crappy sheet Aluminum storm doors with zero insulation value, noisy when you open and close it, and a stupid heavy glass window that you had to take out each summer, store it somewhere, and put it back in the winter. Well, I decided to upgrade. I got one of the doors where you just pull the upper window down and it pulls a rolled up screen down in it's place. It's got double panes, insulated frame, rubber magnetic seals and dual closers. Of course, I got the wrong size door, so what I hoped to be a quick and simple project turned out to take a little longer. I tried so hard to understand exactly what with of door I had, and what I needed to ask for. i still got it wrong. My door is wider and taller than the standards so had to get a custom door. I measured from brick mould to brick mould, but my mistake was that my old door sat inside the brick mould attached to a secondary frame. The new door, well the flange instead of sitting inside the brick mould, wrapped around the front of the brick mould. At first I didn't think that was an issue, but since the moulding was beveled, the screws were going through the edge and not holding. So, I ripped the old brick mould off, and installed a square frame rather than the decorative beveled moulding. Getting the old stuff off was a lot of work. I don't know what kind of nails they used 80 years ago, but I swear they must have been barbed. I also don't know what they used for calking, it was hard as rock, and was not in any hurry to leave the bricks. The big adventures here were that I drew blood a couple of times. You had to drill pilot holes in the edge of the door for the hinges. The edge is metal clad. I had the door laying flat on a couple of saw horses and was drilling into the edge. My hand was above the drill on the door, helping to keep it straight. The 1/8 inch bit snapped, the drill rammed forward and up, and the broken spinning bit ran across the underside of my fingers. No major damage, and I kept working, but Teresa eventually came out and was a bit annoyed at all the blood on the new door. I also nicked myself with a regular old hand saw. I was being stupid and trying to hurry, I just wanted to rough cut the end off one of the framing members. I was holding the stick of wood in one hand and the saw in the other. I got mostly through the wood when it snapped off. It left just a little spike of wood sticking out the corner and I tried to just rip it off with one stroke, but the saw snagged, the stick rolled, and I caught the edge of my finger on the saw. Again, no major damage but more blood to be cleaned up. The door is in, is pretty straight, opens and closes, but I still need to put the closers on. One more task down, 77 to go. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
