I wondering does anyone else have this problem with Therma Tru doors?
About one in three doors have about a 3/8″ margin on the latch side. There is always light at the bottom sometimes even with the light block in it. Not good for an energy contractor.
“How am I gonna save money on my electric bill when there’s a hole at the bottom of my door my cat can walk through?”
I had a rep come out once and asked him about it and he gave me some hinge shims to fix it with. What????
Build it right to begin with and forget the shims.
Before I get slammed here let me state that I dont just install these doors only. I am not a glutton for punishment.
We give the customer options and Therma Tru just happens to be the cheaper option so….If customer wants to invest more money elsewhere guess where they cut. I am thinking about taking the Therma Tru option out though.
Sorry all, just had to install one today and its still fresh on my mind.
Replies
I will assume you have the same set up there in Texas. A local distributor will take a Thermatru slab and prep it for glass etc and hang it to their jamb (which they assemble).
Depending on the assembler, you could have a higher "end" door bogus-ly installed, or a cheaper slab....nicely done.
I take it the jamb head and thresholds were either long or stapled together out of whack.
I think Thermatru might be still headqtrd' here in Maumee. Want I should take a letter over to 'em?
When they still manufactured here I got to refusing to hang them. Out of square slabs were just too agravating.
A great place for Information, Comraderie, and a sucker punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
That could explain a lot. I've seen them bringing in a shipment before and its not the local fab guys that I know. Their work is great.
I've never had a problem with them being out of square its always the top and threshold are too long and I have to shim the hinges.
I'm running out of hinge shims and they gave me a lot. Maybe I should give them a call. The doors themselves I've not had a problem with just the jambs. Since the local guys didnt do it ( and they do most other doors) I assumed they were fabbed at the factory.
Tell the lumberyard, where you are purchasing the door, you want the door from a different fabricator. In my area there's one distributor that continually screws them up....so I make sure the lumberyard is not getting it from them. Andersen Distributors are frequently Therma-Tru fabricators, that I have found do a great job of assembling the door units.
.
I did talk to the asst. man. but I'll try to go over his head when I go back.
Something is gotta give.
Yep, latch side, bottom corner, a few inches up from the sill. I thought it was my cattywampus house on clay, but it's been that way 2 years now without changing.
So it's not just me? Argh!
I refuse to use TT doors anymore because they send out so much crap like that. Search archives here and you could find out that I have complained enough they could be known as piffindoors.
TT only makes the doors ands the distributor locally in your region is the one respoinsible for mounting them into a jamb and threshold. Every TT door I have ever seen has a thres longer than the header so it is impossible to eliminate gaps or to onstall with both legs plumb or the casing square.
The other problem is that the blocking inside the skin at the latchset holes is too small, so the door is weak there and will bend and warp around that weak point from wind pressure or just the force of the weatherstrip.
I have complained to the company and the reps numberous times, and every time I do,, they act suprised and loudly exclaim, "Wow, I have never heard of anyone complain of that before!"
Yeah, sure!
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Two TT doors Ihad to deal with last winter had all the same problems you guys talk of plus they didn't seem to be very well insulated. Both TT doors in an addition had water condensing on their skins while a much less expensive steel door in the same addition was warm enough that there was no condensation on it.
Worthless trash, I think.
Ron
Piffin-I mostly use Andersen for patio doors, but what mfgrs do you recommend for front doors and single exterior doors? Therma-Tru has been frustrating at times, and I've never been thrilled with the keeper on the jamb.....among other things.John.View Image
Marvins and Andersens for trhe patios and make my own or sub to a local shop for a custom mohagany door. Three years ago, I used a couple of Simpson wood doors that were better than TT, but not by much.
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occasioanlly we'll use an Anderson Frenchwood... rarely a Marvin
most of the time we use ThermaTru... with very few complaints... must be our distributorMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
which?My TTs have come from the Brosco bunch in the past. I am starting a relationship with another retailer who says his come out from another distributor.That could improve the assemblies and Jambs, but still doesn't help with the poor weak design at the bore
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the poor weak design at the bore
Specifics, please.
See - you are just like the rest of those Therma Tru guys who claim they have never heard oif this before.You and I have discussed this previously here. Now you for get already? I mentioned it earlier in this thread. Are you just playing dumb or for real? I want to know before wasitng time typing it all out all over again and again and again.
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i'll find out... i've got 4 TT's being installed on Monday...
it probably helps that my lumber yard has it's own door shop, wether they assemble TT's or notMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
I said Brosco but Brockway Smith is probably the right designation for the distributor. I'll have to ask this new salesman what his assembler is.
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I have the same distributors as Piffin and I've had the same problems for years, to the point that I stopped using TT three years ago and swithed to Masonite. It got to the point that almost half of the doors were defective and TT would do nothing. In fact, on one job I installed four identical TT doors in a row and three were 5/16 wider at the sill than the top (you could see light). The lumberyard finally got the rep to look at them (and many other complaints by others). When the rep showed up, the first thing he said upon getting out of his vehicle was, "Ninety-nine percent of my problems are installation errors"; I said, "Fine, take a look." After forty-five minutes of trying to find something wrong with the installation, he admitted that it was a manufacturing problem, and that the problems would be fixed. Three years later, nothing.
After having reps (and one rep supervisor) look at four jobs, admitting fault, and yet doing nothing, I eventually even called the plant manager and spoke to him regarding the issues. He blamed all TT problems on installtion errors, and when I wouldn't back down, told me "F you." I don't use CS doors, in fact, usually only fg, so they should be able to do a reasonable job in a factory setting, but they just don't care. Masonite, OTOH, I've had no problems with in three years.
I'll have to take a look see at Masonite. They spent a lot on advertising 2-3 yearss ago, but it is real world recommendations that get my attention. Thanks.We have wasted an extra hour more or less on every TT door trying to get it to instaall square and plumb and in every case, it is the jamb not square leaving aa gap at bottom.About eight yeaars ago, an owner chose a TT FG skin door from them and we ended up replacing it three times because it kept warping in from the latch set. The door was free each tiome, but painting and installing were on me, all the while the reps exclaiming they had never seen anything like it before....another problem I have had from the brockway assembly folks is screws in the hinge leaves run in at all angles and the self setting hinges not even aligned right. With those align tabs they provide, even a blind man should be able to get it right, but they can't. They did once get me a fifty dollar credit for rehanging a few of their doors on site. Big deal for half a days work!I finally figured out why that FG skinned door kept warping. I saw a cutaway display where they TT was showing off the "high quality" of their product. The solid wood blocking where the latcheset gets driled in is too small so it leaves about a quarter inch of solid wood behind the hole is all. Install a latch and a deadbolt and there is no meat left.every time a rep tries to buttonhole me at a trade show, I ask if they have fixed that yet and they act stupid, even tho I point it out to every one of them and tell them they ned to get it fixed before I will consider TT again.Gene who posted above is an example of their corporate culture - keep on in denial and keep producing the same junk! I can't see how they can be making a profit when they have to replace a failed door two, three, four times until the customer gets pissed and says forget it!
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i did have some problem with the FG doors warping.. so i went back to the steel
hey... gonna see you Thursday nite ?.. i'm bringing my laptop..
got Chief (vs. 10 ) &
Envisoneer 4.0 ( Cadsoft )
and Sketchup 6.0
mebbe i can get someone to show me how to use 'em
and your Softplan
I'll see if i can smuggle some Moxie over the border for you
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Edited 8/12/2007 9:54 am ET by MikeSmith
I EMAILED YOU RE FEST. Ihave used one or two of their steel doors. I do demand the top line ones. They apparently have three grades in the steel. I forget what the name designations are for each, but I tell my door guy I have to get the best ones. The doors are OK, but the hanging still sucks.
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I also installed a TT door with sidelites in my new house and found the same stupid mistakes you mention with hinges. Had two reps out to try to get the door problems worked out. One commented on the fact that I had done an excellent job of installation and called his supervisor and said that "whoever put this door together need a talking too". That sure made me feel good as I still own the door. Anyway I still am going to have to sand the top corner of the door to stop it from rubbing when closing.
I just installed a Mastercraft door with sidelite in an apartment building I own. It was a breeze and quality looks as good as TT and the price was better. This door is replacing another TT door on which the jambs had rotted.
I don't think I will be using TT again.
Sorry I missed the remarks you made in your first post in this thread. Lazy reading on my part, I guess.
I'm not flacking TT at all. I was with them when they were privately owned, and it is a completely different biz now versus then. Do you know who owns them now? Fortune Brands. Did you know that Jim Beam is another of Fortune's brands, besides ThermaTru?
I'm just here to be the cranky contrarian, and comment on your lock block remarks.
The "lock block" in a foamfilled door is supposed to lend some solidity and meat to the area of the 2-1/8" crossbore for a "standard" tubular lockset.
This is design talk from the last millenium, but back then, TT put a 12" tall x 2.5" lockblock in its premium steel, SmoothStar, and FiberClassic models, and the ClassicCraft fiberglass door got a full-length latchside LVL stile that was 3.5" wide. The ConstructionSeries steel door (about 2/3 of their total slab volume of well over a million) got NO lockblock.
Think about that. Well over 650,000 foamfilled steel doors going into use in the United States, every year, year after year, with no lock block whatsoever. Take my tenure there, plus the time since I left, and that means thirteen million doors. Thirteen million doors without a lockblock!
Back in the 90s when TT was selling gazillions of no-lockblock steel doors, Celco/Canada and a Ceco biz with a TN plant were together, shipping a combined volume of no-lockblock steelfaced foamfilled doors into U.S. markets under private labels. That probably boosts the thirteen mil to well over twenty.
Wouldn't you think that if a door without a lockblock was a sure-thing failure in any kind of conditions, any kind whatsoever, that would stress the door, that TT and others would have been nailed to the cross by some plaintiff lawyers by now?
What foamfilled doors are you using today, steelfaced or fiberglass, that meet your standards?
According to my TT vendor Pella now makes TT doors.
I did not know that before.
According to my TT vendor Pella now makes TT doors.
If your TT vendor believes that, I've got a bridge to sell him.
Given the landscape of the market, and manufacturing and distribution realities, a window manufacturer like Pella would never in a million years make the decision to invest capital in foamfilled steelskin or fiberglass entry door manufacturing. Its board of directors would crucify any manager for making the suggestion.
Pella's distribution is largely through independents, who are permitted through licensing to put the Pella name on their businesses. They are locally-owned and operated, often multi-branched.
The entry door distribution chain is the process through which door slabs made by manufacturers like ThermaTru, Celco, and Simpson get to the final purchaser, mostly as prehung units. I say and qualify, "mostly," because in some markets, doors get built into houses cafeteria-style, not as prehung units, but piecemeal, with one biz furnishing and installing frames, etc.
If going out to jobsites as prehungs, one market can look radically different from another, if you are examining the entities in the chain. In the northeast, middle-Atlantic states, and parts but not all of the midwest, distributor-jobbers like Huttig and Brosco dominate the scene, and little entry door prehanging exists outside them. The Florida market has lumberyards doing the prehanging, but the slabs get to them by a middleman distributor. In Texas, where prehang shops exist mostly at the lumberyard level, slab purchasing is mostly direct from manufacturing, without a middleman. The Rocky Mountain and west coast states all have their own versions of the chain, as well.
There are likely some markets, perhaps yours, where an independent Pella chain wants to be a total-exterior-opening source, and include entry doors in its offering, even going so far as to set up a prehung shop. Pella branches like that existed back when I was a ThermaTru suit, long ago in the last millenium.
But if that is what's happening where you are, it ain't the Pella factory that's making the slabs. It's just a Pella independent dealer, seeking to make a little money by selling a branded exterior door product line to complement his well-branded window and patio door offering.
I shoudnt have put That Pella makes them but rather he said Pella owns them.
I dont know if thats true or not but if Pella owned them the doors would not be like that IMO. Its probably like you said they are a dealer for Pella.
I rarely have problems with Pella.
Read my post to Pifin. Fortune Brands, a large public company, owns ThermaTru, along with names like Omega, Diamond, KitchenCraft, and other cabinet companies, Master Lock, Titleist golf balls and gear, and Jim Beam, the maker of fine bourbon whiskey.
Fortune Brands bought them for just under a billion dollars a few years ago, a price way too salty for a small company like Pella to consider.
Even back when I was with TT, the annual gross sales volume exceeded someone like Pella's.
By the time you get even one step down the chain, most players in the door biz don't have a clue as to who is who, at levels above them, much less about sales grosses, profit levels, or ownership.
After a few years in that business, it never failed to amuse me, when thoughts and rumors such as yours would pop up. When things get boring, people start dreaming up the darndest things.
I heard that Pella is making Jack Daniels now. How 'bout that?
Edited 8/12/2007 2:08 pm ET by Gene_Davis
I heard that Pella is making Jack Daniels now. How 'bout that?
I would say thats my kinda company.
I couldnt get any satisfaction from the lumber yard as to my problem so they gave me their vendors #. Needless to say problem still not solved. Or at least I havent got a call back yet. He said he would talk to the fab shop in Grand Prarie to find out the problem.
Duh, we know what the problem is, just fix it. It'll never be resolved IMO.
If Pella is drinking Jack Daniels now, that would explain a lot of my problems with them!;)
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I did not complain about lock blocks in their steel doors and have used a couple in the last couple of years, but only for garbage locations like utility and garage areas. I have no probhlem with a stiff skin from steel melded with a stiff foam core.The total failures on every one I have seen and heard of is in the FG doors. Now you mention that they have a line called Classic-craft FG where the entire side is solid! That is interesting because when I talk to their reps about the problem I've had, it seems like a knowledgeable rep would know enough to simply tell me, "We have a line of doors now that has a solid stile so this will not be a problem for you"
Instead, they act like this is something they never head of before. Something else to question my salesman about....So even tho the company has changed, how is it that you know more than their reps seem to know about their products? I know you are a micro-management type, but doesn't it seem like they oughta be training the people they send out?
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As you probably know, the "lines of defense," organized in levels, look like this when it comes to salesmen:
The guy from the lumberyard
The gal from the distributor (read: Brosco or someone like them)
The ThermaTru in-territory person
The ThermaTru regional manager
The ThermaTru vice president of sales
Having been there and done that, I would not trust that any one of these save the top person would have enough detailed product information to know about our topic here.
ThermaTru used to, and likely still does, conduct its hiring for territory and regional sales folks buy looking for in-country people that know the distribution, and they are hired for their sales and business skills, not for their product knowledge. TT attempts to install product knowledge by running new hires through a headquarters learning program, but having been on the professor's side of the table, I know that many of these students have their minds elsewhere, when it comes to a lot of the tech stuff.
And at the distributor and dealer level, forgetaboutit!
ClassicCraft is a huge price jump up from FiberClassic, but you may want it for far more reasons than the lock block feature. True square edges like a wood door, far more realism in the graining, much better detailing in the sticking, grain choices beyond red oak, etc. The heft alone was a biggie for a lot of people, with a CC slab weighing almost 1.5 times what a FC does.
Your clients are mostly trustafarians, right? Some may be a little tight, but they all have the big bucks. Take a look at the product.
Not sure what a trusafarian is, but if you mean they live off a trust fund, then no, my clients are mostly far above that level of wealth.Which is why most of them can handle the mahogany doors from the custom shop.But I will keep the classic craft in mind. you recommended that one for another project last winter where we ended up going with a mahogany instead.back to the arguementation...." 1. The guy from the lumberyard
2. The gal from the distributor (read: Brosco or someone like them)
3. The ThermaTru in-territory person
4. The ThermaTru regional manager
5. The ThermaTru vice president of salesHaving been there and done that, I would not trust that any one of these save the top person would have enough detailed product information to know about our topic here."THAT may be a large part of the problem with TT if they have reps that cannot be trusted to handle simple communications and problems. The company apparently has erected a barrier against listening to the needs of their customers , preferring a top down, force feed the customer approach to sales.As a counterpoint to this, I used a new product recently and had soem minor and some major problems with it. I communicated this to my guy at the lumberyard and wanted to register my complaint and communicate the problem to someone with the company. Within two days the VP in charge of shipping had called me and wanted to listen to what I had to say.
Then two days later, the area New England Rep called and made a spot visit the same day to see with his own eyes and get my feedback on what the problem was and how to solve it.
That was last thursday. I have no doubt he will be speaking directly to the owner and I will hear from them again.I am the kind of reasonable complainer who does not bite anybody's head off, nor do I raise my voice, but I present all the facts, the ideal, the acceptable, and the unacceptable outcomes, along with good analysis of the problem. Without exception every rep from every company other than TT has always been glad to have my input and I am sure I have helped improve many products for many customers because I couch my words as constructive criticism aimed at seeking solutions rather than just bitching and sounding off. all the people from Therma Tru have always made me feel different though, like they are looking for excuses and escape clauses....
You comment here that the only one worth talking to is the very guy at the top, who has isolated himself there is very telling indeed. The underlings all apparently know that it is a waste of their time to try to improve the product, or to earn customer satisfaction, so they don't bother to try.I didn't realize that you are a generation removed from that now, so I owe you an apology for lumping you in with all that corporate culture I suppose.
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"if you mean they live off a trust fund, then no, my clients are mostly far above that level of wealth."
It depends on the size of that trust fund. We've some trustafarian whiteshoes with vacation homes here, whose trust fund managers can afford antique island homes near Blue Hill. It all depends on how big dad's firm was at the IPO time that occurred a month before the fateful car crash. Got any of the young crowd that cashed in on the Google IPO? We do. Some of the largest family compounds we have here in the Adirondacks are in what is named Rockefeller Park, and they didn't just pick the name because it sounded cute.
I'm not saying that our rich folks are richer than your rich folks, only that a trustafarian isn't just some kid whose dad set him up with a million bucks.
I'm sorry that I portrayed the TT hierarchy of sales as a line of defense. This is a public forum, and certainly can be seen and read by living and working TT people. Many of their territory salespeople are quite product knowledgeable, and whoever their current VP-sales is, he or she may be making calls to guys like you with a problem, frequently and productively.
Take no crap from a TT person that deals with your beef. Kick it up the chain, and see where it goes. Maybe they'll send you a complimentary bottle of Jim Beam and a dozen Titleist NXT Extreme balls.
LOL, I could drink the beam, but what would I do with little white balls?Thanks for the definition of trustifarian. I definitely was thinking on the level of kids with a million to live off of piecemeal. We have a lot of what we call trust fund kids, who sometimes try to work a job as a carpenter or painter or whatever, but they lack the will and stamina to stick with anything for long, probably because they don't HAVE TO. A few are decent, delightful people, but not dependable at all.There are some of the high tech types here. One who retired from MS and Bill Gates comes around to visit him occasionally. Another couple who were into some other high growth outfit in ireland and made their retirement nest egg and came home before they were 35YO. There is a guy who rode the Qualcom train.
Lot of other folk in older industries. All kinds.
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paul... finished hanging 3 ThermaTru doors yesterday
all Premium Steel
no problems, nice looking, good weatherstrip....
sidelight front, 9-lite garage side & center-swing patio
my salesman was here , so i asked him who was building the TT's for our lumber yard..
he says REEB Millwork ( which took over Brodeur )
also... some assemblers use all TT parts ( jambs, sills, casing as well as slabs )
and some use just the TT slabs and assemble with their own parts
i get occasional problems.. but then i get occasional problems with Marvin, Pella, and Andersen too
overall.. i find the TT to be a good choice for 90% of our installs... sometimes i switch to Andersen ( i like their Frenchwood series ).. but i'm not a fan of MarvinMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
True for all ThermaTru doors? Fiberglass, insulated steel....
What brands do you see the fewest problems with? I'm looking for some in fiberglass and possibly a couple in insulated steel for Garage/Mechanical Room.
Do other manufacturers have their doors mounted by their distributors like TT does? Because it seems like that's the main problem--except for Piffin's bore issue, which I ASSume is a factory problem.
I talked to the vendor of TT doors and he said ours were fabbed in Dallas. most of our others are done locally.
I only have a problem with about 25-50% of them on the fab issue. Another problem is The skin doesnt line up with the bore at times. I dont know how they do that, I would have thought the skinned it first then bored it.
I've had this problem on all types of TT doors -fiberglass, metal
I have used TT doors in the past and find them a poor quality. I have switched to Percision Doors made through the Sugar Creek door company. They come prefinished and in excellent shape. Life Time finish Schlage locks. Hang beautifully. They will custome set butts and lock locations to fit the architectual style of your area. They come heavy steel or as I use Fiberglass. You won't be disappointed.
Keith, if this Precision Doors of whom you speak is the New Jersey millwork company I think it is, they cannot do BamBam any good. He is way down in Texas.
I've never heard of them. They sound like they are good quality doors.
I'm looking for an economy door thats good for an economic option for clients. Thats going to be difficult to find probably.
Our local McCoys builds a good economy door but not very many options.
We can get Precision doors down here in GA, and if I could afford 'em that's what I'd have. Megabucks.For people who want fiberglass, and something in between TT and Precision/megabucks, what would you guys use--Andersen?
Bam, Don't ever buy prehungs at home depot! They are the worst prehungs on the planet. We hang our own.
-Lou
You know I did think of that but I will have to special order the jambs and thresholds. I went looking for some last week. I can get paint grade at McCoys.
The problem with the big boxes is thats where most clients go to brainstorm for ideas around here. The local lumber yards dont have a lot for them to look at.
Then the trouble begins.....had a client email me the exact door at Lowe's he wanted one time. It was a higher end Pella so no worries....but there's always those others too.
Well, I've been reading this thread, biting tongue, bidding time, etc. Trying to avoid wading in and spouting off.
Despite the prices you see for Therma Tru, Marvin, Pella, Simpson and such, you have to realize that these manufacturers are the ones that have established the low quality and performance rampant in their field. They have mutually lowered the bar to a point where cardboard and duct tape will soon be a viable alternative to their main product line. They are just making a killing off of the crap, and spending the difference on marketing. Any advantage one product has over the other is so minor as to go unnoticed in any other venue.
If we take the masthead seriously, Fine Homebuilding, then we have to leave the weekend warriors to their thing and let them enjoy the free coffee Saturday mornings at HD, and let them wrestle with Therma Tru (Didn't your mother tell you to never trust a misspelled product name? - Tastee Gud will never taste good.). Meanwhile, the professionals (like this Piffin character) can go to the custom shops, and have superior products crafted by their neighbors and fellow taxpayers. These exterior doors will be built by professionals and will far outlast the standard product excreted by Bigdoorco.
However, I am prejudiced. But I do see the start of a movement similar to the "locally grown, locally consumed" slow food movement where the focus becomes reconnecting to the local scene. More environmentally friendly, more neighborly, and economically sound. Once you have a professional woodworker involved, there will be no need for warranty talk.
Dave Sochar
http://www.acornwoodworks.com
I enjoyed that.I'm not sure what you just said, but I enjoyed reading it.
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You're funny........View Image
Yes, it was romantic. Now, I'm old and building my last house (escept for the real small one I'll need at the very end) in the humid land of north GA. While wood is beautiful, there's no way I can maintain wood doors. I need a serviceable, well-sealing fiberglass or insulated steel. Fiberglass is probably better. All the doors are gonna be set back at least 5 feet under a covered porch.So, I can come up with a reasonable amount of money this one last time to get a good quality door that'll last me without any maintenance to speak of. I can see TT is out of the question. If someone you knew, and gave a rat's a-- about were in my situation, what fiberglass door would you recommend to them?
Mtn Boy - Just because you are old and on the last house doesn't mean you need to have the crap being foisted on the building community. You don't have any more maintenance with a wood door that you do a fake door. You don't have to stain it. 98% of wood doors from prior to WW2 to now are painted. Don't assume that just because you want to chase this "maintenance free" illusion that you have to have a fake door. Heck, if this is "your last house..." now is the time to have a nice wood door to use daily. If nothing else, people will thank you for your foresight and appreciation of craft when you are gone. Nearly all our doors have never required any maintenance whatsoever, while metal and plastic doors need the sill adjusted, screws reset into the jamb, strikes adjusted, etc. As for romance, you trifle my response by terming it so. I'm only going around once as far as I know, so I'm gonna milk it for every drop, and enjoy it all, as much as possible (more romance). I count myself as extremely fortunate that I get to spend my days with some beautiful materials, great designs, talented woodworkers and field carpenters and some very cool projects in a successful business that is making a small difference in the local landscape for the better. I did this on purpose, for reasons some may trifle as romantic, but I wouldn't change a thing. BamBam - Well, you are right that this appears to be customer driven. I hear almost everyday - "I didn't know I could have what I want1" "I didn't know that anyone still did work of this quality" "My builder said I could never afford custom" That's what our customers are driving towards. Once one accepts the mediocrity of shareholder profit driven manufacturing, you will find it very hard to rise out of that deepening trench. If your customer thinks they want a fake door, it is because of mass marketing - not by any real direct experience or analysis first hand. They just parrot what they hear. It is our job to educate and help them see why certain things are the way they are. If they want a kitchen with no windows or HVAC for some unknown reason, do you blindly obey? No, you will list reasons why these things are necessary, steering them to at least some sort of reasonable conclusion. Sometimes I have to walk away - better that than the alternative. We work for homeowners, builders, designers and architects, no discounts or special pricing. Everything is quoted to firm pricing so there are no surprises. We do not have a stock line, but we are reasonable on single orders.
OK. So, one of my biggest concerns is energy efficiency and a good insulating seal. My understanding is that because fiberglass does not move whereas wood moves in response to moisture and metal in response to heat, that would make fiberglass the better choice around the edges. Correct?
Wrong tree bark here. Give me an opening....A good frame will provide for compressible foam weather seal on three sides. How the door contacts this seal is important. The strike will hold the door tight to the seal in the area of the strike, but flexing in the door may make for a less than tight seal at the top or bottom. A good wood door will have a 1/8" crown in it, and be hung so that the top and bottom of the door contact the seal first, and then insure a tight seal all around the perimeter, with the strike holding it all in place. Since the sealing on an exterior door is done mostly on the face of the door, the perimeter margin is well down the list of things to be concerned about, energy-wise. Spring bronze weatherstrip, as a retro-fit, can be added in the rabbet if the fit allows it and the draft warrants it. A wood door is inherently stiffer than a metal or plastic or MDF door (2 out of 3 of those use wood for stiffness in their cores). The taller the door, the thicker it needs to be. An 8' tall door should always be 2-1/4" thick. We like a bronze interlock seal at the door bottom. First, the door bottom is sealed with epoxy, then the j-hook attached and then the door goes back up on the hinges. The bronze sill part is pushed to seat into the j-hook, and marked for fastening. This is mostly waterproof and will last for decades. With 2-1/4" and thicker doors, the j-hook is rabbeted into the bottom so as to cover the hook. In this climate it will frost at 0 degrees or so. It is perhaps the current weakest part of the energy efficiency of our wood doors. Once the US starts to adapt European frames and sills, with their multiple rabbets and seals, the energy efficiency will increase markedly. While we are considering a change to such a system, it would be a huge educational battle for a small shop like ours to start out on our own. Dave Sochar
Very impressive. That's the first interesting thing I've learned today. And I thank you kindly for the courtesy of your reply.
Just realized I'm probably barking up the wrong tree!I'll readdress my question (which does relate to the OP's as well) to ALL:OK. So, one of my biggest concerns is energy efficiency and a good insulating seal. My understanding is that because fiberglass does not move whereas wood moves in response to moisture and metal in response to heat, that would make fiberglass the better choice around the edges. Correct?
I do take the masthead seriously as I think all of the contractors here do. But I've also stated that I do not use just TT doors. That is a customer option. I also stated about taking that option out.
Where I live there are not that many door options. We have a custom fab shop that does jambs only not builds doors.
Construction is a customer oriented business like any other business. You cant make the client buy something they dont want. No matter how hard you try sometimes they will not listen. Its even possible that on one of your doors (beautiful work BTW) is a $20 kwikset (another one that cant spell) because one of the options you offer is to let them pick their own lockset.
So what can you do?
Vow never to work for them again or just grit your teeth and go on?
You and I are griping about the same things just phrasing it differently.
BTW Do you just do them for individual clients or do you have some standards that you make for the masses? If so email me with some prices. There arent a lot of high end clients around here but we usually get the ones that are.