I have an Anderson overhead garage door, 18 years old. The sections
are built on a wood frame, with an insulation core, and what looks
like masonite as the surface. The outside surface is texturted, I
guess it is supposed to look like wood grain.

I am getting some water damage (rot) at the bottom of the door (in the
masonite), where snow and rain splash have made some water damage. I'd
like to repair it before it gets too bad. I have considered digging
out the rotten material and using some sort of filler, perhaps an
epoxy. Another possibility is Liquid Wood, which I have used
successfully on a previous house, but I don't know if it would work as
well on a compressed wood material like masonite.

Any suggestions?

TIA,

Terry

"Terry" wrote in message
...
I have an Anderson overhead garage door, 18 years old.
The sections
are built on a wood frame, with an insulation core,
and what looks
like masonite as the surface. The outside surface is
texturted, I
guess it is supposed to look like wood grain.

I am getting some water damage (rot) at the bottom of
the door (in the
masonite), where snow and rain splash have made some
water damage. I'd
like to repair it before it gets too bad. I have
considered digging
out the rotten material and using some sort of
filler, perhaps an
epoxy. Another possibility is Liquid Wood, which I
have used
successfully on a previous house, but I don't know if
it would work as
well on a compressed wood material like masonite.

Any suggestions?

TIA,

Terry


Well, I can share my experience with you at least; you
can decide whether it's worth anything. I'm just a
diy'er and did have a pretty fair success with my
situation, which was very similat to yours in that the
panels were beginning to rot in the bottom section, AND
they were a pressed-board type of thing.

First thing I did was to cut out a section of one of
the panels to see what it was, and to investigate
whether the actual wood frame under it had also rotted:
It had not rotted.

It was 1/4" (15/64") in its unrotted, paint-scraped off
section, so after a bit of thought, here's what I did:

-- Talked to my local lumber yard: They knew what the
material was, had it in stock, but could not order
panels for me specifically for that door.
-- Checked with the local Overhead Door Inc. place and
they verified what the lumber yard told me, and offered
to get me panels - a some god-awful price!
-- Bought the stuff from the lumber yard; being the
same material, it painted up well and now looks great,
like nothing was ever wrong.

-- Lumber yard told me there would be wood "pieces"
inside surface of the door, same as the windows, and
just pull them off, cut & replace the panel, and done!
Only, well, there weren't any wooden hold-ins: It
was solid wood, apparently having the panels installed
during assembly. Not really surprised, but I was
disappointed.
-- Grabbed my router, and routed out the inside
section of the part holding the panel in. Inside
surface, of course. Now they slipped out rather
easily.

I did this one panel at a time, BTW, with the door
still in place, and still held by the normal suspension
springs. Didn't want to take the door down if I didn't
have to! I didn't have to.

-- Put in the new panel, cut to exactly the size of
the old ones. Old ones by the way were glued & tacked;
I thought they'd be loose like cabinet door panels, but
they weren't. So, I glued & tacked the new ones in
(after cleaniing up the area where they fit of course),
then used some old oak molding to make up for the
routed-out wood; looks very close to the original.

-- Primed, painted, and held my breath. That was
about 5 years ago, and it's still holding well. I
replace all 6 panels in the bottom of the door (a 9 ft
door).
I see the other door, same kind, starting to show
signs that the material in the panels is starting to
swell, so assume it's time to think about doing that
one too, now. Thankfully, no panels except the bottom
ones have ever showed any signs of problems. Well,
except the one I backed my boat into and the prop sort
of pushed one in a little. That's on the other door I
haven'\t worked on yet g.

SIDENOTE: While I had the door opened and stably
positioned like that, I took a few minutes to check the
joints where the bottom of the frame met the side
pieces. It wasn't as rock solid as the top corners
were at that point, so I also slipped a piece of pt
wood over the joint and, being careful that it could
never interfere with the lift wires, fastened it with
glue & screws. That bottom rail gets a little extra
pressure applied because the wires connect to a bracket
right at that point.

Ask me in another 5 years or so and I'll tell you
whether I did a decent job or not g.

Be EXTREMELY careful, if you work on the door in place,
to firmly and fully block it so it cannot open or close
on you as you work on it. That's why I left the
springs etc. all connected. I was afraid that extra
pressure would cause me a problem, but it didn't seem
to. No cracks in any of the paint, no movement of any
parts visible.

YMMV of course, so please keep in mind this is my
experience, and only mine. I've had people say I did a
good job, but ... them's sometimes famous last words, I
guess. I used vice grips on the tracks to hold the
door from going up, and tacked boards to each side,
under the door, to hold it open at a convenient height
to work with. The farther up you let the door go, the
less weight there is on the overall frame. Oh, I
forgot: The door opener I reattached too, and let it
help hold the door, then I put the grips and boards on
to add extra hold.

HTH,

Pop