As I’ve mentioned with several other projects displayed in our portfolio…

…I’ve included several of these less than high profile projects, as they are sometimes referred to…

…to illustrate that these are our bread and butter. The fancy doors and the super fancy houses are nice to work on also…

…and were thankful for the reputation that results in being asked to do them. But many, many of our projects might be called less than glamorous…

…and that’s just fine with us, because without them, we wouldn’t stay in business. Many of our projects are simply adjusting doors and windows.

Replacing a lock. Replacing some weather-stripping. No job is too small. On this particular project, we replaced a wood door with a steel door. Also, a new jamb in a masonry wall.

The Mt. Park area has some enviable views, even if it’s the wooded areas that provide a degree of privacy and a greater sense of rural beauty, even as it’s but a hop and a skip to downtown Portland.

This was a dining room in need of a natural infusion of the great Northwest’s local landscapes. And Pella’s wood-clad sliding patio door certainly facilitated that infusion.

This project represents a common door upgrade.

Back in the 70’s, during the first energy crisis, the aluminum window industry sold millions of storm windows and doors.

They also invented the sliding patio storm door. This involved installing a second sliding door assembly on top of the original.

This required opening & closing two doors and you don’t even want to talk about having to clean the glass.

Our technician Tony, gets ready to install the new door assembly.

I didn’t stick around long enough to get a shot after the exterior moulding was installed, but you get the idea.

This is a good application for wood doors, because of the protection against weather by virtue of the overhang.

Before Shot.

After Shot. You might notice that the swing of the door was reversed.

A good looking door. A variation of the Simpson model 1660 with a single-fluted panel.

An old drafty residential grade steel door with many miles on it.

And in particular, a door jamb showing the signs of the wind driven moisture encountered on the Vancouver side of the Columbia River.

Not surprisingly, the water damage problem extended on through to the rough-opening components.

After all the damaged materials are thoroughly removed, then all the adjoining surfaces are treated with fungicide.

And then the damaged component materials which were removed are replaced with new materials.

A wood-clad Andersen door makes for a nice upgrade.

It is rare for a home-owner to be willing to pay the cost to have a commercial-grade door installed into a residential opening. We are often asked what the strongest type of door is. And the answer to that question is your hollow-metal steel door, which is a commercial-steel door, such as one would find on a theater, or a school or a warehouse. Not to be confused with your stereotypical residential-grade steel door.

These two differing types of steel doors (Residential Vs. Commercial) are as far apart in strength and durability as are a Ultra-Light aircraft as compared to a Lear-jet. When door openings, such as this client’s side-door opening are considered a high-risk for criminal entry, then there is merit to the notion that you may want to make it as much work as possible for the intruder to get through the door.

We say this because we have repaired many doors over the years that “would-be-burglars” damaged, yet failed to get through. The point being that if the task of breaking through the door requires too much noise and draws too much attention from neighbors, then the bad guys are often going to find someplace easier to get through. So this client chose the “creme-d-la-creme” of tough doors for this opening, which is pretty much hidden from view, and thus a prime target.

Add to the installation of this commercial-grade steel door, the fact that it was changed to an out-swing application, and you can rest assured that no one is going to kick this door in. The hinges have non-removable-pins and there is an anti-pry plate on the strike-edge of the door, so prying between the door & jamb won’t be any walk in the park either. The small glass lite-kits are too small to allow reaching through to the locks on the interior side, while large enough to provide light to an otherwise dark basement stairwell.

Up until the 1950’s and into the 1960’s, residential back and side doors almost always were only 1 3/8″ thick doors, frequently with only ?” thick panels and annealed single-pane glass.

This was obviously before burglary and energy conservation were a common part of our culture’s residential construction lexicon.

These side and back door stairwell landings with the foundations protruding into the finished living space are always a little extra bit of a challenge.

We always add an extra hour or two of labor to deal with the issues related to fastening the jamb assembly & running the trim around the concrete. There’s usually lots of extra caulking work.

But problem solving is what door & window installation is all about. If you don’t learn to relish the challenges, you’re really in the wrong trade.

Loewen wood-clad doors and windows. A serious contender in the top-shelf door & window market.

Their entry level wood product is a FIR product. Fir is not an upgrade in the Loewen world.