Pre-hung doors won’t fit up stairs
Francorosso
| Posted in Construction Techniques on
All, I am curious if it is possible to de-construct pre-hung closet doors to get them up my stairs without ruining them. If not, can someone suggest an alternative for the closet doors? I’m finishing the attic and I planned on two 5.0 double doors for the closets, but then remembered that the last closet I put in I couldn’t even get a 4.0 door up the stairs without removing the trim, and then the door got all crooked and never looked right. There is no way I’ll get 5.0 doors up the stairs, and I’m not really interested in sliders unless there is no other alternative. Thanks for any help.
Franco
Replies
You can certainly remove the door and take apart the jamb.
Remove the fasteners and carry it up the stairs.
If it's a cased jamb............with the casing already attached........beats me. You might be able to remove the 3 pcs of casing as one and separate the miters.......then put it all together. Or order it prehung, knocked down and buy your own casing.
they usually hang (cut the hinges) on the jamb not put together, then assemble.
You've saved them a step.
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should be easy, take the doors off the frame, knockdown the jamb (should be staples or nails at the top where the rabbet is), take it upstairs and put it back together.
I like to use staples to put the jamb back together.
The important part.... how are the hinges attached, 3 knuckles on the door or jamb
Well, the good news is I haven't bought the doors yet, but the 4.0 that I bought last time from Lowes had the casing attached, and I thought that was the way all pre-hung doors were made these days. Maybe I'll have to look a little further than Lowes and HD and buy one that has no casing.....
Franco
You can always take the casing off too, the downside is more holes to fill or just buy new casingI'd look at a real lumber yard, the only thing that comes with casing attached around here is split jambs, and I haven't seen those for a while.Our big boxes don't have casing attached, so hopefully just a matter of looking aroundgood luck
Barry E-Remodeler
I forget if they had a special name; but, I've bought "ready to hang doors" that have the trim pre-cut and machined, but not assembled.
We have often found the frame to be a little too flexible and, space permitting, bond a strip of ply to the pieces to give them strength.
I guess I should also tell you that we often save money by buying single doors, then throw out the two latch-side verticles and cut a new top-piece to make doubles. We also found out the hard way that not all doors are symmetrically reversible for hinge-side and open-direction and we've ended up assembling the verticles inside-out and cutting new hinge mortises.
Phill Giles
The Unionville Woodwright
Yeah, maybe it's just novice stupidity, but I wouldn't hesitate to disassemble the frame if that was necessary to get it up the stairs. The casing, if any, is just more stuff to disassemble, and you can always toss it entirely and install new if you don't like the holes in the old or you split it a bit taking it off.
Hint for removing nails from casing: Some like to pull nails through from the back, but this makes the holes too large. I prefer to set the casing face down pressed tight against a piece of scrap and tap the nails out. The scrap prevents the tear-out that tends to occur when you tap casing nails out.
Why not buy the doors and frame and case them yourself?
Solar & Super-Insulated Healthy Homes
Well, I am not a carpenter, I'm just the homeowner, and I have some good guys that are framing my closets for me, starting tomorrow. I am buying the doors, so that's why I'm asking the experts here for advice before I go out and waste any money on something we might ruin. When we took the casing off of the 4.0 door to get it up the stairs it completely trashed the casing and then the door didn't hang right, but maybe that was just the guy who installed it and not a result of removing the casing....... And yes, I am looking at just buying the doors un-hung. I saw some louvered mahogany doors that looked really nice online.
Franco
How a door hangs has nothing to do with the casing. If the casing prevents the door from sitting flat then the rough opening isn't flat, and either that needs to be fixed or the casing removed and jamb extensions added.
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