"Greg Rodenhiser" wrote in
message
I have a 4 year old house where the back door (Pella
steel) leaks on the bottom corners. I can see the water
on the wooden rail on the threshold and seems to only
occur on the two corners vs the middle. The weather
stripping is wet on the bottom half of the door where the
door compresses into it when closed and the corner pad is
completely soaked. Doing a visual inspection the seal
when the door is closes seems tight (except the top
corner on the knob side shows some light). Can you give
any advice on what to check/try?
Is all this correct?
1.The door swings out
2. The threshold is in two parts...
a) ribbed aluminum
b) wood which is higher than and butts on the edge of the aluminum
3. The doorway is more or less in line with the walls of the house; i.e.,
there is no porch or appreciable overhang over the doorway.
Questions:
1. does the aluminum threshold slope well outward?
2. what is the brown, rectalinear object low on the jamb in photo #3?
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Looking at the photos, these are my observations...
1.The miter between top and hinge side casing is open; water can enter
there.
In the same photo I can't tell if the door is fully closed or not; if it is,
there is a considerable space between it and the hinge jamb and water could
easily enter there. If that gap exists, you should install a stop; i.e., a
thin, narrow strip of wood that touches the door when the door is closed; it
should be on both side jambs, top one as well. One can buy smallish, self
adhesive weather stripping to attach to the edge of the stop where it
touches the door. This is the sort of weather strip I am talking about,
stops need to be about 1/2" thick or more...
http://www.amazon.com/Frost-King-V25.../dp/B000B4N3OA
2. Water can enter at the edge between the aluminum and wood threshold. It
would be far better if the Al threshold were wider and incorporated the
higher part in it. I don't have tons of door experience but that's the way
all my outswing door thresholds are.
Even if the Al threshold were wider, water can - and does - enter where it
meets the jambs. That's because the Al thresholds generally have a piece of
wood under them and the jambs are stapled to it. That means the edge of the
Al butts against the wood jamb, the jamb extends below the Al and water runs
into that joint. Built like that, they will always fail. The same is true
of your wood threshold abutting the aluminum one.
IMO, most of your water is from these two places. The condensation on the
door isn't helping either...I'm guessing that the staining and rust around
the wood threshold fasteners are mostly attributable to that. If you wind
up keeping the wood part, change the fasteners to bronze, brass or stainless
steel.
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The water is eventually going to rot both the wood jambs and the wood
threshold against which the door closes. I've had to repair several rotted
jambs. What I did was...
1. Dig out all the rot all the way back to whatever they are fastened to (in
my case, that was concrete block)
2. Fill the dug out area with Bondo, sand and paint.
3. Assure that there was about 1/4" gap between bottom of jamb and
threshold, fill that gap with a good caulk.
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Your *BEST* fix is to build/have built an extension to the house extending
out 4' or so; sort of a mini-porch.
Your next best is to replace the Al & wood thresholds with a wider one of Al
which incorporates the higher portion. If you do that you need to make sure
the entire doorway is properly wrapped as per Oren's post...if there is ANY
way for water to enter, it will.
--
dadiOH
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