Concrete wall and exterior door


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Old 09-22-09, 11:55 AM
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Concrete wall and exterior door

Hello, I am converting a cinder block garage into a living room. My question is regarding the existing opening for what will be the exterior back door. (36" door with plenty of room to fit it in.)

I have framed the inside of the opening (and the whole inside of the garage) with 2x4's for Sheetrock. This makes the exterior door opening 11.5 inches thick. (Cinder block + 2x4) I have purchased a new Jamb, but because the opening for the door is so thick, I need some instruction on how to frame it in.

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
 
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Old 09-22-09, 02:24 PM
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The opening is (just the concrete) is 39 3/4 x 81 1/2.
 
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Old 09-22-09, 04:53 PM
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Not exactly sure what you've got there... so I'll ramble about a few things you can think about. I assume you are thinking of an in-swinging door... swinging into the home, where the door itself is flush with the interior of the wall.

A standard 36" door, with brickmould, measures 40" wide, and 83" tall, from outside of brickmould to outside of brickmould, and from top of brickmould to the bottom of the aluminum sill or threshold. In other words, if your masonry opening was 40x83, (level, plumb and square) the door would fit perfectly inside an opening that size. Trimming 1/8" off the brickmould on each side to fit into your 39 3/4" opening is not a big deal, provided the sides are perfectly plumb. The problem is your height.

With an opening that is only 81 1/2" tall, a standard door, like the kind you might get at a big box store, won't even fit. Those doors are usually about 81 3/4" tall. So unless you can gain about 3/8" of height, a standard door won't fit in your opening. And even if it did fit, it wouldn't look good with 1 7/8" of trim on the sides and 1/4" of trim on the top. A storm door wouldn't fit on it either... not enough room on top for the z-bar to mount to.

You could look into a custom sized door that would be about 36" x 78 1/2" or perhaps look into a standard sized mobile home door, which I think are like 78" tall. You would want to order the door jamb (wall thickness) as wide as they can possibly make it so that your aluminum threshold will be as wide as possible. I doubt that they make them a full 12" wide, so see what you can get.

One other consideration is whether or not you have to worry about frost and a continuous footing under the threshold of this door. Sometimes there will be a solid pad on one side of a door, and a sidewalk between the blocks on the other side. Sometimes that sidewalk will not be the best thing to mount a door threshold over because it will go up and down with frost and will really screw up the operation of the door. So that's something you can look at too.

So whether or not you need additional framing added onto the masonry opening really depends on how wide you can order your door. If they say the maximum wall thickness you can order is 8"... or 9 1/2"... that's how wide the framing should be. So figure out the size of door you will get and go from there.

If you don't mind the door jamb and trim being inset into the block, a standard 4 9/16" jamb would be fine. But sometimes you want a wider one to cover up an ugly mess of cement where sidewalk meets slab... or similar. Personally I think it looks better when the door jamb is as wide as possible in a situation like yours, so that's why I suggested that.
 
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Old 09-23-09, 03:49 AM
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One rambling thought as well. The opening leaves no room for wood framing to attach the door unit and jamb extension. I would have cut the opening 43" x 83". You can always use a 32" door unit, which will require about 35" plus 3" of framing or 38 total inches. You're on target there. Like XSleeper, I am concerned with the height. You should have an additional 1 1/2" for the framing header piece, which will sit on top of the side pieces. Figuring a minimum of 82" for the door frame, you would need a minimum of 84". Now all this is taking into consideration the door will be mounted to the outside of the opening and a jamb extension set in to cover the remainder.

Larry
 
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Old 09-23-09, 08:19 AM
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Thanks guys. I re-measured the height of the masonry opening...it is actually 39 3/4 X 83 3/4! Does that mean I can use a standard 36" door? I would like to have the door flush with the inside...if I make it flush with the outside, the door will not be able to open ALL the way from the inside.
 
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Old 09-23-09, 04:51 PM
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You're right. In thick walls like that you have to set the doors on the inside of the jamb or install an outwardly opening door. This, of course, doesn't allow for a storm door application.
But I think you are back in the ball park, now with the added height and width. More standard.
 
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Old 09-23-09, 04:51 PM
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Yes, like I mentioned, I assumed you would mount the door flush with the inside of the wall. You don't want to put jamb extensions on the hinge side of an inswinging door... and usually you want the door to swing open a full 180 degrees if needed.

You can get a standard door to fit based on those new measurements but as mentioned, you will need to shave the brickmould on the sides to get it to fit. And if the sides are not plumb, you would want to scribe the sides of the brickmould accordingly so that the door would sit plumb once installed.

The framing RO for a 36" door would be roughly 38 1/4 x 82 3/8. So one way of looking at it is that the framing on the inside should protrude 3/4" past the masonry opening on each side and 1 3/8" down on the top.

I still think you would want to special order the widest door jamb possible... for a wide wall thickness. Unless you don't mind it being inset.

You might be able to find a stock door for a 2x6 wall. (6 9/16" jamb)
 
 

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