[guided Instructions ]
Handcrafted Iron Door Installation Instructions
At Handcrafted Iron Doors, we make high quality doors that are beautiful, durable, and easy to install. Most installations should take 4 hours or less on new construction and 6 hours or less on remodel jobs. It is recommended to have a team to install your door that is familiar with general contracting principles and having door installation experience is a plus.
Below are basic instructions for having a successful door installation. Minor tweaks and adjustments may be needed during installation for your door to fit and close correctly. Our doors are hand made so each and every door may be slightly different. Because of the doors being individually handmade, it is possible to have a door a pinch out of level to make all the hurricane bolts, flush bolts and deadbolts to close properly. Slight adjustments like these will never be noticeable to the human eye and will not affect or impair the door’s ability to open and close properly.
We usually ship our doors and jambs together on a pallet. A double door will typically have three pieces. You will receive two doors and a separate jamb. When you receive your door, unpack it carefully to avoid damaging the door or jamb. Be especially careful if cutting the cardboard and bubble wrap on the jamb, as if you are using a razor knife and cutting the bubble wrap protecting the jamb, it is easy to cut through the bubble wrap and cut the jamb and damage the painted finish.
When opening the plywood crates of the doors, there will be about 50 or more staples holding the plywood top to the sides. When using a crowbar and hammer, use caution to ensure that as you are lifting up the plywood top of the door you do not drag the plywood top across the door, as the sharp staples can damage the painted finish.
Once you have unpackaged the door jamb, make sure each door jamb hinge pin has a round brass washer on it. If any are missing, please look through the cardboard and bubble wrap to make sure they do not get thrown away.
MAKING SURE YOUR DOOR IS GOING TO FIT PROPERLY
Measure the door rough opening you have on your home and the outside dimensions of the jamb. If the rough opening is too big, use wood bucking to make the opening smaller so your door jamb fits with about 3/8″ to 1/2″ on each side and 1/2″ on top. All wood material on the sides and top need to be secured properly in place to be strong enough to hold the door jamb properly if you are securing the door mounting tabs to this added framing. Your doors are heavy, so you need strong, secure framing or concrete around the door for proper installation. We want to ensure your door has enough room to move side to side and up and down so you can adjust the door properly. Once your rough opening is correct, you can now proceed to install the door jamb.
INSTALLING THE DOOR JAMB
Dry fit the door jamb in the rough opening at this time and see how much room you have side to side and on top. The door threshold should be sitting flush against the concrete or subfloor. Check the level of the threshold when sitting flush with the floor and use shims to ensure the threshold will be level. If all the space around the jamb looks good and the inside of the inside face of the door jamb will be flush with the interior drywall of the home, you are ready. Check the level of the door jamb front to back and side to side to make sure your door will be sitting property when installed. Mark with a pencil, if desired, where you want the door jamb to sit in the opening. If the inside face of the jamb is not sitting flush with the inside drywall, make adjustments to have this happen properly. It may be necessary to cut out drywall and or wood in the areas where the mounting tabs need to be bolted to the home. Be sure not to take too much wood off the studs when attempting to have the jamb flush to the inside face of the drywall. Taking off too much wood can weaken the structural integrity of the stud, making the strength of the install not proper. (If you do not want the inside face of the door jamb to sit flush with the inside face of the drywall, you can skip this last step).
Remove the door jamb from the opening and now put a generous amount of silicone caulking everywhere the threshold will sit on the home’s floor (keeping any shims in place when originally leveling the threshold. Now, place the door jamb back in its position where it will sit permanently, ensuring to compress the caulking so it prevents any water leaks in the future. Make sure the door is centered exactly where you want the door jamb to be placed. Ensure the threshold is level and the sides are plumb. Once you have this set properly, put one or two 5/16” lag screws (if going into wood studs, which you may want to consider predrilling to ensure that you do not crack the studs when installing the lag screw fasteners) or concrete tap cons if concrete block walls, at the top middle mounting tab on the jamb to hold it temporarily in place. Once these two fasteners are in place and holding up the jamb, you can now put the doors on the jamb.
INSTALLING THE DOORS
Use any grease to grease the hinge pins on the jamb. Make sure you remove any grease on your hands or fingers before lifting the doors. To install the doors on the jamb, the doors have to be at a 90 degree angle to the jamb before lifting and putting on the hinges. If you do not have the doors at a 90 degree angle, the top of the door will hit the jamb and will not allow you to put the doors on the jamb hinges. Once you get the first door in the hinge, close the door to see how the door is fitting on the jamb and it the reveal at the top of the door is level. Leave the installed door open at a 90 degree angle before installing the 2nd door. (This will keep the door jamb and door from falling down and injuring someone if you have not installed the two screws holding the jamb to the house properly). Now, install the 2nd door on the hinges. Once both doors are on the hinges, close the door that will normally be the inactive door and try to engage the flush bolts which hold the door in place. If the flush bolts do not engage, do not worry. Leave the normally inactive door not engaged and shut the active door so both doors are now closed.
ADJUSTMENTS TO THE DOORS
Have someone hold the doors in place and get up on a ladder to check the reveal (the gap between the top of the door and the underneath of the top jamb) at the top of the doors to ensure that the spacing on the reveal at the top of the doors are even going all the way across the doors. You may need to move the bottom of the door jamb slightly right or left to have the doors and top reveal align properly. Once the door is adjusted and the reveal is set properly, engage the flush bolts on the normally stationary door. If the doors are hitting each other when closing the doors you need to use painter’s tape and tape a shim on the top of the door on the 2” edge of the active door and try to close the doors together. This will force the doors, the jamb and hinges apart. A full thickness shim may be too much of a gap between the door and if so, use ½ or ¾ thickness of the shim and retape to the top of the door and close both doors again. If everything looks like it is fitting properly, you may now install the rest of the fasteners on the mounting tabs all around the door jamb. When installing the fasteners, make sure you install the fasteners in the holes of the mounting tabs at the far outside edge. This will ensure that the doors do not pull on the jamb and allow the doors to sag and hit each other when closing over time.
There is a flush bolt plastic insert at the top and bottom of the door and rotating the flush bolt plastic insert will allow the hole to line up with the flush bolt.
If it is hard to lock the doors with the deadbolt, this may be due to the weather stripping is brand new and not fully compressed. Over the next several months, the weather stripping will compress and make the door close easier. If you are having problems with the door deadbolt not locking, it is possible you may need to file the strike plate on the door deadbolt to allow the deadbolt to engage until the weather strip compresses over time.
INSTALLING THE HANDLES
Install the door handles at this time. On our custom pull handles, the side where the screws mount the handles to each other should be in the inside of the home. When installed properly, you should not see any screws on the pull handle on the outside of the home.
ADJUSTING THE ROLLER CATCHES
Our doors come with roller catches which allow the door to shut and click in place. If the doors do not click in place, you may have to adjust the roller catches outward for them to catch the roller catch plates on the 2” edge of the door. The roller catches are adjusted outward by turning the screw just above the roller catch and just below the roller catch clockwise. Turn both screws the same amount of turns to ensure the roller catch goes out from the door evenly.
HINGES AND MAINTENANCE
Our hinges have brass zerk grease fittings on the top of them. It is recommended to grease your hinges every 5 years or sooner if needed.
