Exterior Door Replacement

What a swap in the existing opening covers

Most entry doors we replace are not broken in any dramatic way. They stick in August and rattle in January, the weatherstripping is flattened, daylight shows along the bottom, and someone has been keeping a rolled towel against the threshold for two winters. The door has reached the end of its life, but the opening it sits in is still the right size and in the right place.

That is the job this page is about. We take out the old door and its frame, deal with whatever the opening has been hiding, and set a new prehung unit in the same rough opening. No new header, no cutting into the wall, no change to the framing. If you want a wider door, a new sidelight or a door where a window is now, that is a different job with framing and a permit behind it, and we will say so at the first visit rather than letting it come up halfway through.

Staying inside the existing opening keeps the work contained. The siding, the interior casing and the finished floor on both sides can usually stay where they are, and the house is closed up again before we leave.

The sill is usually where the trouble starts

Every door we pull out of an older Massachusetts house tells us something about how water has been moving. The usual story is a sill that has been taking water for years. Rain runs down the face of the door, gets past a tired threshold and soaks into the wood below, and freeze-thaw does the rest. By the time the door is sticking, the sill can be soft enough to push a screwdriver into, and sometimes the rot has reached the rim joist or the subfloor under the entry.

We do not set a new door on a bad sill. Once the old unit is out we probe the sill, the bottoms of the jack studs and the framing below, and we show you what we find before going further. Small rot gets cut out and rebuilt with sound lumber. If the damage runs into the floor framing, you hear about it right there, with photos and a plain answer on what it adds to the job, and nothing moves until you agree to it.

Then the opening gets flashed properly. A sloped sill pan goes in under the new door so any water that gets past the threshold drains back out instead of into the house. Most people never see that piece, and it is the main reason a replacement door lasts.

If something unexpected shows up under the sill, we call you over or send photos before any change is made.

Matching the trim and hardware you already have

On a colonial or a Cape with original exterior casing, the trim around the door is part of what makes the front of the house look right. When the casing is sound, we remove it carefully, set the new door and put the same casing back. When a piece has rotted at the bottom, which is common where it meets the step, we mill or build a replacement to the same profile so the patch disappears once it is painted.

Inside, the goal is the same. The interior casing comes off and goes back on, and where the new jamb depth does not match the wall exactly we add jamb extensions so the trim sits flat. From the front hall you should not be able to tell the door was changed, apart from the fact that it now closes with one hand.

Hardware is your call. Some owners want an old mortise lockset or a family knocker kept, and we can usually prep the new slab for it. Others want a new handleset and a deadbolt keyed to the rest of the house. We settle it with you before the door is ordered, because bore holes and lock prep are set at the factory on most prehung units and are hard to change afterward.

Storm doors, weatherstripping and the exposed side of the house

A north-facing entry on a windy lot takes a beating in a New England winter, and on the South Coast or the Cape the salt air works on hardware and finishes all year. Part of choosing a replacement is matching the material to the side of the house it faces. Fiberglass and steel units hold their shape better than wood in exposed spots. A wood door can be the right choice under a deep porch roof where it stays dry.

Weatherstripping and the threshold are adjusted after the door is hung, rather than installed and left alone. We check the reveal along the latch side, set the strike so the door pulls tight against the seal, and adjust the threshold so it meets the door bottom without dragging. The gap between the new frame and the rough opening is filled with low-expansion foam, which seals out air without bowing the jamb.

Storm doors deserve a real conversation. On an exposed entry a good storm door protects the main door and adds a layer against the wind. On a door that already sits under a porch roof it may add very little. If you want one, we hang it at the same visit so the two doors are fitted to each other.

How the day of the swap runs

Before anything is ordered, Steve or someone from our team measures the opening, looks at the sill from both sides and talks through style, swing, glass and hardware with you. You get a written scope that says what is included, what we expect to find and how anything hidden under the old door will be handled if it turns up. Special-order doors take time to arrive, and we pass along the lead time the supplier gives us rather than guessing at one.

On install day we lay floor protection inside, keep the opening covered whenever we step away, and plan the work so the house is closed and locked before we leave. If something unexpected shows up under the sill, we call you over or send photos before any change is made. When the door is in, we walk it with you, show you how the lock and threshold adjust, sweep the entry and haul the old door away.

See the rest of our exterior work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.