I’ve had a few unique ones lately and some others coming up. Makes for interesting “Look at this” comments – not quite a boogerin’ with blue…
so ya’ll join in with yours too.
Here is the first play of the game.
Tell me – What is wrong with this door? There are three things done wrong here. Two are obvious and one might need a hint since I already fixed it by time I shot this photo. It was while fixing that item that I glanced around and thought, WTF?
The main reason I was there was to replace some rotted floor boards right inside the door. That is one hint.
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never messed with Dutch doors but isn't the knob supposed to be on the bottom half?
I'll keep looking for the other 2
eta to fix spelling
Edited 9/28/2008 4:02 pm ET by john7g
The knob/lockset IS supposed to be on the lower portion. The idea of having a dutch door is to be able to open the top half and have the bottom still keep the pigs and goats out.With this one, if you open the top with the knob, the bottom is swinging loose with nothing to fasten it. For the next two items ( related to each other) remember that the hint is - I was there to fix rotten floorboards.That was almost funny in itself. The housekeeper had to show me those. She had placed a floor mat for wiping your feet inside the door there to cover up the little bit of rot. But since it had a rubber non-slip backing, it kept things wet so that it rotted even more faster.
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besides the knob on the wrong half.... the rabbet is reversed...it should shed water to the outside
View ImageMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
The rabbet/shiplap joint is revered for water shedding, but think further on it - if reversed, how would that top half open in?It is the wrong kind of joint for the door altogether. That is problem #2, now onto problem #3BTW, there is a rubber tube weather strip that compresses in that joint, but there is also water sign that it has not been 100% faithful in serving the purpose.Esp since this door is in a north facing wall with roof draining over it and NO roof overhang.
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so, what is the proper joint between the door halves? A quick google was fruitless
all the old ones I have seen have the bottom door section with a bead sticking up about 3/16" and a corresponding half round rabbet trough in the bottom of the upper.
So they sort of snap together tupperware style when closed, with the bead becoming a water damn. It is not a tight snap because you leave an eighth of an inch for paint anyways, and free movement.Then the outside of the upper gets a drip detail similar to what I added at the bottom of this door. That is glued and a part of the door so no water rund behind it, and can drip off away from the joint.This is only a utility door and not a main door, and the owner not wanting to spend more than necessary, so I will have to figure out a strip like that that will fit past the knob. He will not be interested in cost to be remilling the door when it never sees dutch useage.
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you must be slow typer 'cause I'm not that fast of a thinker. :)
picked the rabbet out 3 minutes earlier.
There's 1 more of the 3 that Pif said are to be found.
What about the threshold? The way the wear pattern is on the paint it looks like 1/2 of the seal wasn't contacting the sill.
Good eye on that, ( see above) but what a happened there is that about a year ago, I sent one of my guys over at request to shave things down so the door would work because it had swollen and jammed closed to not operate. He shaved thresh and edges and sealed door edges but did not mention so many things CAUSING the problem. I should have taken a closer look myself back then. That is part of my thinking in starting this thread - to point out, Don't just fix the problem, but look for WHY the problem exists.I think at the time, I was aloof to look too deep, because this particular customer is one where I had done a lot of work ten years ago, then they got another contractor for a project, got upset with him and came home to me, and I have been fixing some of their doo-doo for a couple years now. You always have that emotional question, "How deep do I step into it?"
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I got a ding! I got a ding! Or at least a partial one.............Good god, no gutter and NO OVERHANG. Doors NEED overhangs!
How about the rabbet halves at the door split? Seems that config would have water running in as opposed to keeping it out.
hard to tell....but it looks like the exterior deck may be at the same elevation as the interior floor
View Image
The deck is another couple of problems actually, but not what I had in mind directly to do with the door.The deck has a classic series of problems, all evident of un-knowing or uncaring carpenters/designers.The decking surface is fir T&G. Top painted only. It is already showing rot starting in the joints.It has the roof draining right onto it with no overhang or gutter ( I did add a gutter for them)It is almost as high as the interior floor so the threshold is a trip hazard. The framing was done with reversed crown in center joists so that the deck spoons to make a puddle 3/4" deep in the center. Not only is this bad for the deck surface, but it lets water splash onto the door more.Those railing posts are set so close to the house that water is trapped there. I have already scrapped an inch of green fuzzies off in the corner nigh the post.
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The door sill is lower where the door sits than the exterior part of the sill which is higher. Sill should shed water/slope from door toward the exterior.
Ding! #3
Not exactly right, but that sill is 'uinique'!It looks to me that the original sill had no step at all, then the interior portion of it was added to create a step under the door tiself.Problem is that this added portion slopes inwards. The door has a rubber sweep on bottom that doesn't do much either.So all the water splashing onto the deck and wind-blown was running down the door and weeping in, then laying on the floor to rot the flooring. It was well painted, but there was no caulk seal between thres extension and the flooring, so water weeped back in under the thresh where it soaked into end grain.This is the item I had done something to fix. The spill=strip on the bottom of the door is made with 17° angle at top and bottom to shed water to drip onto the out-spillage side of the thresh.Good points on this door are that it is mahogany and the thresh is white oak. Methinks they had it made at a decent door shop, but the placement, location, and installation was the lousy part.Now a bonus round. There is one other item showing in this that should get somebodies attention. Look outside the ext casing everyone.
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Great idea for a thread!Bonus answer:Something about the newel base directing water against the casing/siding perhaps?'Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it' ~ Chinese proverb
View Image
well, there was water puddling there that was growing green stuff, but that is not what I mean - I'd already mentioned that to Mike.I like your avatar signature.
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Bonus Round: The exterior casing sits on the siding, so it should not run all the way to the floor, because water will get behind it and become trapped, also wicking back up to the jamb, etc.Am I close?Bill
actually that is a problem too. I'll be nipping that casing off about an inch above the deck, but that is not it either. Look just to the left of the left casing and the right of the right casing.
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different siding...
man ...we gotta get you a better photographerMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
sneaky!;)The siding you see on left is 1x8 T&G sheathing right on the studs. It got painted. The siding on the right is cedar claps over the T&G and butted into the casing. They stopped it at the door, and never finished that side of the house. It's been like that for a few years and I just pointed it out to the owners and they had never noticed. So now I have about 280 SF of siding to do.This house is one that has 'growing pains' The jobs grow and the owner gets pained.I met with them in 97 or 98 right after they bought it to fix some rot on the original back deck.
Well, that deck was one of the old painted sailclothe. I'm sure you have seen them. so what could have been a week's worth of repairs then became a 30K deck job, followed by a 37K kitchen remo, then a whole house remo a couple years later. I never figured out exactly why they had another contractor for a couple years, but I do recall talking back to the Mrs once....She has since admitted that I have been right in every piece of advice I have ever given her.
I was gracious about it.
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kind of hard to tell from the picture don't see any flashing or standoff for the rim board
did anyone mention the sweep being on the wrong side of the door, or is that another east coast thing?
also looks like end grain under the sill, again can't tell from the picture
under the sill is that 1x8 siding.The sweep is a drip piece I just added to shed water away from the wrong sill flow. I'm not sure if the deck it directly attached or not. It is a little 5x6 stoop with a couple steps leading to it sideways. It is on 4 - 4x4s
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<The siding you see on left is 1x8 T&G sheathing right on the studs. It got painted. The siding on the right is cedar claps over the T&G and butted into the casing.>doh..nothing like missing the obvious. I blame it on the photographer :)
Barry E-Remodeler
This has been more fun than I thought it would be. You guys are good detectives. You found more wrong than I was thinking of. It is kind of like those newspaper kids puzzlers - find six variations between the two pictures.;)So how 'bout another one...How do you suppose I found that there was rot at this sill, what caused it, and why did the caretakers not know about it???
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the downspout terminating to the left of the windowMike Hussein Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
You are warm.It didn't terminate there though.
See the end of a cast iron pipe elbowing out under the window?Don't forget there are three questions in this now.
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<How do you suppose I found that there was rot at this sill>You fell off the porch and when you grabbed for something to hold onto the siding came off in your hand<what caused it,>water <and why did the caretakers not know about it???>didn't care enoughLooks like it's a rebuilt porch? seems to be a larger inset area in the foundation behind the porch? crawlspace?whatever the elbow feeds from was tied into the downspout and when it emptied it backed up the downspout and rotted the wood
Barry E-Remodeler
Not 100% but I gotta give you an A plus with an extra gold star for creativity there.There were ferns growing up in front of this thing, and seats instead of railings. I was working on the front steps and set up a step ladder here to let staff get in and out without walking on my epoxy layups. So I happened to notice that at the base of that pillaster, the paint was blistered away and cracked far worse than any place else on this house. Knowing that a painter will be along soon, I thought, Hmm, I wonder why that is that way.So I took a putty knife and started following it along....caretaker never noticed because the worst of the crack in the paint was behind that seat setting in front of the pillaster and the ferns there. The downspout had to send the water through three 90° ells all right in that area, so debris from the gutter had filled it up about 4' above the first elbow. It was really compacted tight, so I'm thinking several years worth, maybe even since last paint job 8-10 years ago. A good caretaker would have never let that happen, but the guy doing it now has been on this for only 1-1/2 years.Anyways, that blockage meant frozen water burst the seam at back, just enough to let it spray over into the corner and lead in.You are right, there is a crawl space - see the lattice work, and brick support pier, and right again that the deck was rebuilt about '89 framed with PT. I know the guy who did it.The sill timber is a nice big 8x12, so I still have plenty meat left after hogging out the junk. I got part finished friday when it started to rain, but I want to do an epoxy treatment and add some ant killer at this point before covering it all back up again.
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I wondered about the planting and if originally there were moreLooks like carpenter ants in the new pictures. reread your post and see you are doing ant killer, is it for carpenter ants? my pest guy says he has nothing for carpenter ants except to get rid if the wet wood.nice dissection of the job. love the old stuff
Barry E-Remodeler
If you look again at the second photo of this, you can see the ant sawdust powder piled up there where it fell out from between studs. Yes Carpenter antsI do have some ant stuff that they don't sell anymore, and am using some borates on this too.Mostly they need wet wood, so once that problem is taken care of they should feel unwelcome.
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"seems to be a larger inset area in the foundation behind the porch?"There is a circuyalr staircase just inside this spot, so it is a darn good thing I found this and fixed it before it got any worse, or re-supporting that would have had to whole side of the house openned up.
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good thing the eyes are still sharp. :) what's the joists sitting on top of the 8x12. looks like they are half lapped or something
Barry E-Remodeler
What you see there are the studs.
No plates used in this kind of construction. Timbers filled in with studs. Usually an 8x8 corner timber too. Sometimes the studs are at about 19.2" OC! The outer bottom corner of each stud was totted too, so my surgery involved making those notches. The one 2x6 you see is set in 4-1/2" from timber face. The next will be longer and 3" in, and then one to set only 1-1/2". At the upper section of timber I will have one 2x6 that is also up into that notch in the 2x4 studs.
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While your eyes are all sharpened up, do you see the old joint in the spruce timber?
I never noticed it untill I got to working my chisle around there cleaning up
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the scarf joint? Didn't see it until you pointed it out. looks niceI've done that for a repair a couple of times. I've been able to work on kinda similar construction twice now. I'm guessing it's more common in your area <g>working on one now that started as a Victorian around 1890, there was a fire in 1920 and they rebuilt it more as a craftsman. explained some of the stuff I found behind the plaster
Barry E-Remodeler
When we redid this one about '99, we stripped wall paper from on bare plaster, and found that the paperhangers and written their names in pencil on the wall, and dated it in '37
So that is how old the last remo was. I think the kitchen was older than that. Had an old slate or soapstone sink and a cast iron coal/wood cookstove five feet wide, bare pipes etc.It was built around the turn of that century for a doctor.The family had a famous or rather infamous person on their staff back then. she was known in history as Typhoid Maryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Mallonhttp://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/a/typhoidmary.htm
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now that house has some interesting historyI like finding traces of craftsmen that preceded us on the job, gives me a connection and gives me extra accountability. I don't want to be the one to screw the job up. :)
Barry E-Remodeler
I used to always write my name or staple a business card to a stud someplace in the job, and other little time capsules too.But I am getting to where I find my own card or see somebody else tearing out a job that is only 8-10 years old.I've told of a house where I redid the kitchen about 4-5 times. once for every new wife this guy had. some guys just have to get a new mattress...;)
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OK somebody else put one up here. I need to travel for a DR apt today so might be gone off a day or so.
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I'm sure it's been answered, but what the heck-it's almost time to eat.
The Dutch in the door is bass ackwards, letting the water stream in. But as you point out-it wouldn't work w/o a tricky dam to redirect the stream.
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Edited 9/28/2008 7:21 pm ET by calvin
I'll have to draw, or shoot a photo of some that have the dutch done right.
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The only ones I have dealt with have a sort of "water table" on the top portion to kick out the water. Slide bolts from top to bottom section.
The only thing tougher to fit in a bastard opening is 2 "things".A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/