Two hundred year old front doors.

arynne

I'm attaching here photograph of my front doors. The wood under bolt on left has rotted away. Now left leaf is unstable and can't be bolted down and so the entire door can't be closed properly.
Without spending a fortune, what's the solution to this I wonder? Thanks.

geordief

I can't see your attachment...

arynne

All right Geordie. I will try again. Thank you.

geordief

thanks
well I think I have a similar (ongoing)problem (I have attached a pic of my door -it is not particularly old).

In a way your door is in better shape than mine as mine has warped and I have also tried to shave where the two leaves meet in an unsuccessful and irredeemable attempt to make them flush.

I do have the problem of rot in the bolt area and have tried to strengthen that area buy taking the door off its hinges ,drying it out etc etc.

However after a few years the damp gets in again and my latest scheme (which I haven't actually done yet) is to immobilise the right hand leaf by means of injecting( with a mastic gun) some (almost any) kind of mastic sealant between the base of the leak and the actual floor .

(If I don't do something the door could break completely in the bolt area and become more or less unusable.)

In your case I think you would need to do this from the exterior as it seems that the leaf is pretty flush with the floor on the interior .

Of course this would only be worth doing
(1) if you only really needed one half of the door to open normally (I think the sealant could be cut open quite easily when you needed to bring in a large piece of furniture for example)
,(2) it could be done either invisibly or very neatly.
and
(3) if you weren't confident that you could do a good strengthening job on the bolt area which ,as I say, might require taking the leaf out ,maybe drying it out and doing some kind of dentistry/carpentry on it which would be easier once you could turn it around , upside down etc.

arynne

Thanks very much for your detailed reply. I had not thought of using sealant and will file this idea away as a plan B.

In the meantime plan A is to take the bolt off. This will require using an angle grinder as all screws are deeply embedded. When that's off we can access the amount of damage and take it from there. Thanks again

Stove Fan

arynne wrote: »

Thanks very much for your detailed reply. I had not thought of using sealant and will file this idea away as a plan B.

In the meantime plan A is to take the bolt off. This will require using an angle grinder as all screws are deeply embedded. When that's off we can access the amount of damage and take it from there. Thanks again

It looks like the rot is on the corner.

Take off the bolt and cut the rot out neatly cutting a 45 degree angle on the vertical section and cut a new matching piece of wood and glue and screw it into place and use filler where needed. Let dry, sand down, undercoat/topcoat.
Ideally I would refurb the whole door and putty as it's looking very sorry for itself.

Ideally use someone with good diy skills or a carpenter.

It's a nice door:)

Stove Fan:)

miles teg

arynne wrote: »

Thanks very much for your detailed reply. I had not thought of using sealant and will file this idea away as a plan B.

In the meantime plan A is to take the bolt off. This will require using an angle grinder as all screws are deeply embedded. When that's off we can access the amount of damage and take it from there. Thanks again

I'd use a drill rather than an angle grinder and drill through the screw heads.

zebrano.96

did a job like this before
can snowball very easily trying to get to good wood
more of a labour of love
but worth doing beautiful doors:)

dathi

dont use an angle grinder. scrape the paint out of the screw head with stanley knife then with the screw driver in the slot hit the screw driver a couple of times with a hammer. this will loosen the screws and they will come out. when you have the bolt off scrape off any loose soft rotten wood . to build up the missing wood use isopon car body paste. (you can get it in halfords) it easy to use and sand down to the correct level. if the piece is very large you can build it up in layers,

Pottler

Once you clean and remove the screws using a stanley knife and a good quality screwdriver, remove any total mush, paint liberally with a wet rot hardener(available from BQ) allow to dry and harden and use either Isopon as suggested or chemical metal to form the shape. This will work but it's a total bodge but one I've had to do somtimes. The correct method is to remove the door, place on bench and carefully saw out the rotten timber and cut a new piece from a suitable hardwood.
Use either biscuit joints and glue(get good stuff like a foaming polyurethane rather than the white muck) if you are a novice or reform the mortice and tenons and let in the new piece with a scarf joint. Once sanded, filled and painted it should be invisible. However, this is easier said than done if you are not an experienced carpenter, hence go for the hardener/filler route if needs must.:) I live in a very old house as well, but I'm a builder and I can just pull a chippie and painter off another job to do stuff like this for the missus which is nice and easy. If I was doing it myself as a DIYer, I'd go cure and fill.

Ambersky

Not sure about how much it would cost but http://www.sashwindows.ie/index.php/restoration/ restore period doors as well as windows.
It looks like a door that would be worth getting fixed properly.