How to seal exterior doors from wildfire smoke
Wildfire smoke gets inside our home through our doors and windows. I’m focusing on the doors right now and will move on to the windows when those are addressed.
We had new doors installed a few years ago. You can see light around them, and they’ve since shifted and the gaps aren’t the same width. They don’t close nicely, either.
We’re unable to afford someone to repair them and seal against smoke. Can you recommend some online tutorials to help us figure out how to fix these problems? I’m not really sure where to start. The person who installed them isn’t available.
I did adjust the bottom plate with a screw driver, and that helped, but the side with the handle and lock has a gap that widens closer to the bottom. We’re seeing daylight from the crack. I’d sure appreciate some guidance on what to do. They don’t lock nicely. We have to push on the door. It’s been pretty frustrating.
Thank you.
Replies
Some newer doors come with a strip of foam weather sealing that can be pulled out and replaced very cheaply. Pull yours to one side and see if you can see a spline going into the corner of the frame. If you can pull it out and buy a new one at any home store. Failing that buy some stick-on weather stripping and stick it on the frame until the gap is gone. All that said smoke is almost impossible to keep, out of your house. Smoke particles are so small they can come through tiny gaps.
It's likely that one of your door jambs is out of plumb, that is, the latch side doesn't line up with the hinge side, so the door doesn't meet the stop at the bottom. (The word "jamb" is French for "leg," so I think of misaligned jambs as "walking.") A good carpenter could adjust the jambs to line up, but that may not be possible in your situation.
You can get add-on weatherstripping that will help you seal the gap, such as https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Building-Products-Top-and-Side-Door-Jamb-Weatherstrip-Set-01958/100133154 It has a compressible bulb that can be pressed against the door and nailed (or screwed) to the stop (the part of the jamb the door closes against.)
The reason the door is hard to close & lock is that the jamb misalignment moves the latch away from the stop. Since the latch is half-way up the door, it's out of position by 1/2 the distance of the misalignment at the bottom. To close it, you have to push on the door hard enough to bring the latch into alignment. If desired, that can often be cured by filing the opening in the strike plate a bit bigger (that's the metal piece on the door jamb.)
Thank you. We're quite frustrated, and with no money to hire someone, we haven't known how to approach this. During summer we can actually see daylight mid-day along the entire length of the door on the locking side. I've noticed that the door seems to be warped, but I think what's going on is what you've described. I'll take a closer look and see what we can do to fix this ourselves.