I am replacing my original basement door (jamb and all) 30 wide by 78 high. The bottom 3rd of the door fits into the foundation (fieldstone and mortar). The top two thirds fits into the wood framing.
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My question: do I need to attach the jamb to the fieldstone and mortar foundation (i.e. the bottom third of the doo)? If the door is secure by fastening to the framing, can I skip the bottom part? Seems like a chore to drill into it and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to. Any thoughts?
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Joe Joyce, <!—-><!—-><!—->Boston <!—->, <!—->MA<!—-> <!—->
Replies
Secure the threshold and it probably will be OK. I'd try to put a couple screws in the bottom third myself.
Joe - I've done a couple of these and decided to secure it into the stone - I worried about the long term effect of slamming the door, eventually knocking it out of square/plumb. It was hard, but not that hard - where i had enough clearance, I chipped out some grout (old stone foundation) and secured a long j-bolt in fresh mortar, then used that to bolt on scraps of PT wood. Then I nailed normal framing to that, then hung the door normally.
Thanks. Can you tell me the type of drill bit I should use? Obviously something that will go through concrete/rock?
Joe- I just chopped out the old mortar with the back of a mason's hammer to make voids large enough to put large j-bolts in.
You could just drill into the mortar and put an anchor of some sort, in which case I'd use masonary bits.
I should have mentioned that I'm an amateur, and a bit of a hack at that, so you might want to hang out and wait for the pros to weigh in.
Hey Joe I would use a urathane type chaulk/addheivsive such as PL1 or sikkens
and glue that sucker in place on that bottom 1/3 I have done that on doors, access
doors and vents just, petty the poor fellow that tries to remove it after it sets up. Dw