Hey everyone! I've got a bit of a dilemma. We recently inherited some poorly installed French entry doors that really need to go—they're solid wood but they're all cracked and messed up. The previous owner tried to retrofit them onto a steel door frame, adding some furring strips to make it work. When I take out the furring, it'll leave me with a nice square frame that measures about 63 15/16" all around, ready for some new 32" slabs. The house is all brick and the other exterior doors are hung right off the steel frame without any issue.
The challenge I'm facing is that Home Depot won't install slab doors, only pre-hung ones. Plus, being in a rural area, local contractors are charging an arm and a leg—like $10,000, while the door slabs I want are only $2,800 total. I'm looking at Masonite Fiberglass Fir-Textured doors.
I'm pretty handy; I've done some woodworking and have most of the tools I need. But I keep hearing that hanging these doors is super complicated, and I'm not sure why. The 32" doors I want are 31-3/4" actual, which gives me about an 1/8" gap on either side. Height-wise, I'm good. I'd like to add a new threshold which seems straightforward, and I can measure and mortise the hinges with no problem. Drilling the lockset and all that is manageable for me too. I heard some talk about astragals being a big deal, but I'm not convinced. What am I missing? Check out these images for reference: [https://imgur.com/a/BM9QHOn](https://imgur.com/a/BM9QHOn)
2 Answers
You might want to check if the Masonite door can actually be cut in width. In my experience making fiberglass doors, we added the astragal to the door without needing to cut it down. Just keep in mind, the frame opening should be at least 1/2" wider than the total width of the doors. Hope that helps!
It's great that you're thinking this through! One major thing to consider is what your plan is if you can't finish the job in one day. If something goes wrong, how will you secure your house? As a pro, I could knock this out in a day with prep, but for someone less experienced, it might take longer and that could lead to problems. There are a lot of nuances to get things just right that you might not have anticipated. Happy to elaborate on what those could be if you're interested!