Author Topic: Help with interior door replacement  (Read 1300 times)

Mrs Brightside

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 89
  • Location: a Cinnabon in Omaha
  • What one fool can do, another can.
Help with interior door replacement
« on: March 13, 2021, 02:09:10 PM »

We have a bunch of crappy old birch/luan doors in our house. To make matters worse we've replaced a bunch of carpeting with LVP or revealed hardwood, so the doors are too short now. This is a typical 60's housing boom development, so we don't need to get too fancy. But I think new doors would look MUCH better. So, we want to replace about 15 interior doors. And actually the front door too, but we'll probably pay someone to do that one.


1) Where to buy? Previous topics have suggested finding a local "mill shop" rather than big box store for both quality and price. Being a newbie I'm not sure what a mill shop is, but I found this place that has a few showrooms in the area. Would you contact a big place like this? It says they sell to homeowners. https://www.hornermillwork.com Or would a local lumber yard sell doors?


2) What to buy? Molded? MDF? Pine? I imagine hollow core is fine for closets and something solid for bedroom doors. But there are more choices than I thought.


We don't have any experience besides watching a few videos. Planning to buy a palm router and get to work on slab doors. Are we crazy? I don't want to rip out the trim to do prehung doors plus they're more expensive. Not real sure if we're signing up for days or torture, or we'll get the hang of it pretty quickly?

Sibley

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7428
  • Location: Northwest Indiana
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2021, 02:28:59 PM »
@lthenderson this seems like it's up your alley.

Papa bear

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1838
  • Location: Ohio
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2021, 03:00:22 PM »
Are you buying slab doors or prehung? 

If slab doors, you’ll have to bore out the doorknob location, and either chisel or use a router for the hinges.  They have jigs that make it faster.  The doors probably won’t fit perfectly, so they also may need cut or planed.  It’s the cheaper route, but very labor intensive.   

Prehung, easier to hang the door, but you’ll have to remove the door casings.  Usually costs more. 

I went with pine solid core slab doors. Had 12 to do on the 2nd floor. First floor was during a rehab so it was “new construction” so I went with prehung. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bradfurd

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 77
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2021, 06:11:24 AM »
I replaced 8 interior doors of the same style as yours. I bought them at Home Depot, and their millwork department can do custom sizes...I was very pleased with the results. I had the doorknob hole bored in the factory, and traced the hinge locations (clamped the old door on top of the new one) and then chiseled them out by hand. As Papa Bear mentioned, I did have to trim a few of them with a table saw to achieve an ideal fit.

Looking back, it was a lot of work...going prehung would have given me a neater product and would probably take less time, but would certainly cost more.

I donated all of my old doors to the HfH ReStore.

Fishindude

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3075
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2021, 12:47:14 PM »
I like solid pine panel doors with a simple colonial casing for a relatively low cost, solid door.   If you can get them pre-finished it will save you a ton of work.

big_owl

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1051
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2021, 01:53:58 PM »
We buy all our interior doors from Baird Brothers hardwood online.  You can basically get any size custom made with a whole bunch of different styles.  I always get solid red oak doors but you can get hollow core as well. 

Papa bear

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1838
  • Location: Ohio
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2021, 04:54:19 PM »
We buy all our interior doors from Baird Brothers hardwood online.  You can basically get any size custom made with a whole bunch of different styles.  I always get solid red oak doors but you can get hollow core as well.
Didn’t know they had doors! I’ve bought plenty of flooring from there.

I get my doors at “home outlet” which used to be grossmans bargain outlet.  They have a ton of door and they used to have 2nds of slabs that were fine if you were going to paint.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

peterlewis

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 8
    • EduHelpHub
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2021, 12:13:41 AM »
Well, firstly I should appreciate you for the thought of replacing your door with DIY. My suggestion for you is that you can use your old boundaries wood (if there is any) and with that, you can put polystyrene in between by cutting out with different designs. Well this was my idea but if you think you can also take help from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjMSt66WZy4

MasterStache

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2912
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2021, 07:27:06 AM »
Well, firstly I should appreciate you for the thought of replacing your door with DIY. My suggestion for you is that you can use your old boundaries wood (if there is any) and with that, you can put polystyrene in between by cutting out with different designs. Well this was my idea but if you think you can also take help from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjMSt66WZy4

That seems like a lot of extra work. I've hung many slab doors and had great success with something simple like this.

I swapped out all our old hollow core builder grade doors with solid 3 panel doors special order from Menards. I typically don't like Menards but same doors from the Big Orange or Lowe's were significantly more expensive. 

lthenderson

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 2252
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #9 on: March 23, 2021, 08:11:13 AM »
@lthenderson this seems like it's up your alley.

Sorry for the delayed response, I was on spring break so missed this post until now.

We have a bunch of crappy old birch/luan doors in our house. To make matters worse we've replaced a bunch of carpeting with LVP or revealed hardwood, so the doors are too short now. This is a typical 60's housing boom development, so we don't need to get too fancy. But I think new doors would look MUCH better. So, we want to replace about 15 interior doors. And actually the front door too, but we'll probably pay someone to do that one.

Are we crazy? I don't want to rip out the trim to do prehung doors plus they're more expensive. Not real sure if we're signing up for days or torture, or we'll get the hang of it pretty quickly?

In short, tearing out 15 doors is a lot of work and you are in for many days of torture. First off, if I were to do a project like this, and I wouldn't recommend it, I would recommend using prehung doors. It will save you lots of time. Getting hinges mortised into the new door and keeping your gaps all nice looking is very tedious work and easy to get wrong. Also with openings that shift over time, one can spend hours getting a door to fit just perfectly. Using a prehung door, eliminates all this fastidious work and is much easier to get better looking results but opens up its own can of worms.

When you remove a door to install a prehung door, the trim on both sides needs to be removed and then the prehung door installed. Often this means the prehung door doesn't sit exactly in the same location, due to different shimming and so when you go to install the trim back around the door, you end up with overhangs or small gaps that now have to be filled, or adjacent pieces of trim cut longer/shorter to make things work. Depending on your sense of aesthetics, it can be as simple as some caulking and paint or it will literally cascade into lots of new baseboard and paint.

Sometimes for various reasons, wall thicknesses can vary and one way to compensate for that is to trim or build up the existing jamb to match. So when you replace this with a new prehung door, you may end up doing the same things to get the jamb widths to match the wall thicknesses.

Reinstalling hardware in old openings, hinges and lockplates, can mean having to add screws into wallowed out holes, or lock plates that are in a slightly different position meaning there isn't material for the screw and the chiseled hole is out of place by a quarter of an inch. These can be fixed with chunks of wood, chisels and glue but take time.

I have replaced doors before but generally do so as part of a room remodeling project when everything is torn up anyway. In your case, probably the easiest and cheapest fix would have been to add another layer of sheathing over the floor before laying your new flooring down to make up the height difference and you would have ended up with more solid flooring as a result. After the fact though, you don't have that option. The gaps seem obvious now because you are focused on them. I would give it a while and see if you come to ignore them. Gaps underneath doors are generally a good thing as they allow the air to circulate better in a house. If you really need noise privacy, there are different types of kick plates and door seals that you can install to take up the gap on the bottom until such time you are ready to do a general room upgrade by painting all the walls and trim anyway and at that time make the swap.

SndcxxJ

  • Stubble
  • **
  • Posts: 116
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #10 on: March 29, 2021, 10:06:06 PM »
I have a couple things to add to what has already been said.
Door companies in your area can take in your old door and match it with a new door with the hard work already done.  The hinge placement will be correct, the handle bore will be in the right spot, any planing can be done to match as well.  You will need to transport all 15 doors to them and mark them as to which door goes to which room.  I recommend removing all hardware before handing them over.  Make sure you let them know which doors need to be longer, maybe by marking the door with a sharpie so that it limits the confusion. 
I recommend masonite solidoor (used to be called safe n' sound) which are a composite solid core door (I'm sure other manufacturers have equivalent door lines).  They are light for a solid core door which will help against sagging, but strong against damage and help limit sound transmission between rooms.  They are paint grade doors that come pre-primed.  I use them for rental property and have replaced hundreds of doors with this type, though I route and fit the doors myself but like others have said it's not a task I recommend taking on.
I think you will find having a local door company match the doors that you will provide will be a nice balance of price and sanity.

Mrs Brightside

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 89
  • Location: a Cinnabon in Omaha
  • What one fool can do, another can.
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #11 on: April 07, 2021, 10:43:16 AM »
Thank you all very much for the feedback! Lots of things to think about here.


I should say it’s not just the length but also appearance of the doors that we don’t like - sad brown lauan. I thought about adding a filler piece to the bottom of the short doors. Then I planned to use a paint sprayer to paint them all white (if I do keep them), so it wouldn’t be too noticeable. But then I thought if I’m doing all that work, maybe I should just get nice new doors.


I will post back when I know which way I’m going with this project.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2021, 11:04:16 AM by Mrs Brightside »

Jon Bon

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1664
  • Location: Midwest
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #12 on: April 07, 2021, 04:06:58 PM »
Yup replacing the slab is a pretty brutal trial by fire for the average home owner.

Its (barely) within my skillset, but its dang hard to do and not really worth my time (or anyones) its just a time consuming skilled carpenter project. Getting them to line up perfectly is so hard. Take off too much material or something does not line up perfect you might have to scrap the whole door and hours (days?) of work.


Jon Bon

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1664
  • Location: Midwest
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #13 on: April 07, 2021, 04:08:13 PM »
I have a couple things to add to what has already been said.
Door companies in your area can take in your old door and match it with a new door with the hard work already done.  The hinge placement will be correct, the handle bore will be in the right spot, any planing can be done to match as well. 

This is news to me, have you used such a service? It sounds like it would be pretty pricey since its basically the same custom work, just done at the factory?


Mrs Brightside

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 89
  • Location: a Cinnabon in Omaha
  • What one fool can do, another can.
Re: Help with interior door replacement
« Reply #14 on: May 10, 2021, 09:29:06 AM »
I have a couple things to add to what has already been said.
Door companies in your area can take in your old door and match it with a new door with the hard work already done.  The hinge placement will be correct, the handle bore will be in the right spot, any planing can be done to match as well. 

This is news to me, have you used such a service? It sounds like it would be pretty pricey since its basically the same custom work, just done at the factory?

I found an example of this service. Still trying to find one in my area. https://www.rystin.com/services/made-to-match-interior-doors/