Best Door Weatherstripping Available

11 years ago

Seems we have a bunch of posts about staying warm this winter, so I would simply like to share the greatest door weatherstripping system available. (and I suppose you could do windows, but we did not).

Years ago I read about it in This Old House, but at the time we were far away from rehabing all of our doors. So I hung on to all the info for all the years because it sure looked like a great system. Last year we finally started some doors, and this year we finished them all. And it is a fabulous system.

It is a little involved to install, but absolutely worth all of the effort. You have to rent the corner grooving tool from the company and buy the bit (s), but we had no problem doing so and our order and the tool were promptly shipped, and our account promptly credited as soon as we returned the tool. The products were all top notch.

The threshold stripping requires a router to install, but is infinitely adjustable, rides on the door instead of the floor (yeah!) and is simply ingenious in design. The door must be removed to install.

Now when we close our 125 year old doors there is the beautiful sound of gaskets sealing on all four edges, just like when closing the refrigerator!

Here's the TOH link to get started, which links to the company that makes the stuff:

http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/how-to/intro/0,,20152571,00.html

Comments (6)

Clarion
Original Author
11 years ago
Just for fun, here is a "before" picture of one of the two double French doors we found in the garage:
Clarion
Original Author
11 years ago
And after installation, though we still have work on the trim yet. I forgot to take a picture of the threshold weatherstripping installation, but I think THO covers it well enough:
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jlc102482
11 years ago
Ooh. Your doors are beautiful.
Clarion
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank-you. You are very kind.

As stated, the original interior doors (French) were found in the garage when we bought the house. They had been replaced with a single hollow-core (!) door with the sides filled out by 2 x 4 framing and pine. Boy, did the cold air poor in!

The original exterior (storm/screen) doors were long gone. We can see that they were there though by the framing and hardware marks. Of interest was that it appeared that one of them was much larger than the other, i.e. not equal in width. Despite all our research, we could never find one example of such a set-up and would refer to fellow readers for a possible explanation?

Having nothing to go by design-wise for the exterior doors we turned to Vintage Woodworks and TouchStone. But we never found a design that seemed quite right. Then we hit upon the drawing below during one of many marathon Google Image searches. It was perfect, but we'd have to make it ourselves if we wanted it, and turn it into 2 French doors. This we did. We only did okay with the design however, -in retrospect the bottom raised panel is a little too big and sometimes looks to me more like a barnyard door from Mr. Ed!

So the interior doors are original, and the exterior storm/screen doors are our own reproductions.

More fun: We bought our house almost exactly 10 years ago today, on 11/22/02. It is 8000sf. That first winter we used 6103 gallons of heating oil. The house was turned into a boarding house in the 60's and was on the verge of being condemned. Of course, heating oil was about $1.10 a gallon then! Last year we used 2084 gallons, though it was a very mild winter (the previous year was 2839 gallons). So, we've saved a great deal of oil, but not very much money! The irony...

We re-did all 72 sashes, added exterior storms, caulked leaks, replaced the boiler, tore out the baseboard and put back the radiators, and now the doors are sealed.
brickeyee
11 years ago
Resource Conservation (used to bill itself as 'Resource Conservation Technology') has been a good source for all sorts of weather sealing products for a while now.

Adding their 'flipper' seals to the sides, top and bottom of double hunk windows with felt seals at the meeting rail (if you put them on the lower sash they are only visible from outside when the window is partly open) provides 'like new' infiltration protection tat does not show.
Circus Peanut
11 years ago
I love Resource Conservation for their great high-quality 'mohair' window pile weatherstripping, which is a godsend for leaky older sash windows that have been sanded and refinished too often over the years. Also it's one of the few places to get real spring bronze and j-channel stripping at a decent price. Second the recommendation!