On new construction jobs do you seal all six sides of the interior doors? All the doors I've seen say (typically on the top of door) they must be sealed or void warranty.
Sealing tops and bottoms of interior doors.
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Nsomepaint
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I dont see why some people think its a big deal to stain the tops and bottoms either. IDK about you guys, but I stain my doors laying on saw horses, so just rub your stain rag on the ends.
As for paint grade doors, my system is to take them down, and lean them down sideways about four or five worth, and sprya the tops and bottoms, then stand them back up and paint as normal. I will never take a door down just to it though, like some GC's seem to expect us to do. They sell little metal tools with a tiny paint pad on it, you can bend and paint door bottoms with though.
As for paint grade doors, my system is to take them down, and lean them down sideways about four or five worth, and sprya the tops and bottoms, then stand them back up and paint as normal. I will never take a door down just to it though, like some GC's seem to expect us to do. They sell little metal tools with a tiny paint pad on it, you can bend and paint door bottoms with though.
Just as a point of reference, I took all 34 of my 1949 vintage 6 panel pine doors down to as close to bare wood as I could get, none had been sealed top and bottom in 1949, and i saw no need to do it...the doors suffered no ill effects from being unsealed for 70 years. Granted, you'd have to spend some $$$ to get quality doors like that today....maybe that would make a difference.
Regards
Gemstone
Regards
Gemstone
On the topic of whether to seal doors according to manufacturer’s specs, including the tops and bottoms, I figured I’d share some photos which serve as a prime example of what can happen if doors aren’t sealed according to manufacturer’s specifications within the stated timeframe.
I took the photos when on a estimate and the doors had been left unsealed well beyond the manufacturer’s specified 2 week timeframe. The client had -zero- recourse due to not having them sealed within 2 weeks after delivery, which was clearly stated in the warranty as well as in the finish spec. There were over 50 custom white oak doors that cost close to $80K which were pretty much toast. Although the manufacturer didn’t provide adequate spacing for the floating panels to expand as much as they did, had they been sealed to spec and it did happen, the manufacturer would have been held accountable. In this case the client was SOL.
I recently had a $5K Burmese teak door which was finished a year ago warp beyond the manufacturer’s tolerances stated in their warranty. The first thing the door rep checked were the tops, bottoms, and mortises to determine who was at fault. Luckily I had sealed everything according to spec, otherwise I’d probably be eating the cost for replacing the door....a big price to pay for skimping on a few minutes’ work.
It’s always important to adhere to the manufacturer’s specifications to CYA, otherwise the onus of replacing the doors can fall on the finisher.
I took the photos when on a estimate and the doors had been left unsealed well beyond the manufacturer’s specified 2 week timeframe. The client had -zero- recourse due to not having them sealed within 2 weeks after delivery, which was clearly stated in the warranty as well as in the finish spec. There were over 50 custom white oak doors that cost close to $80K which were pretty much toast. Although the manufacturer didn’t provide adequate spacing for the floating panels to expand as much as they did, had they been sealed to spec and it did happen, the manufacturer would have been held accountable. In this case the client was SOL.
I recently had a $5K Burmese teak door which was finished a year ago warp beyond the manufacturer’s tolerances stated in their warranty. The first thing the door rep checked were the tops, bottoms, and mortises to determine who was at fault. Luckily I had sealed everything according to spec, otherwise I’d probably be eating the cost for replacing the door....a big price to pay for skimping on a few minutes’ work.
It’s always important to adhere to the manufacturer’s specifications to CYA, otherwise the onus of replacing the doors can fall on the finisher.
On new, uninstalled doors, there is really no reason, or excuse, not to finish. On an installed very heavy door, especially an exterior one, it can be a challenge to say the least.
About six years ago my neighbor had a very costly and weighty set of double front doors installed which he asked me to finish ( stain and seal).
Each door had four glass panels inserted at intervals from near the top of door down and a transom above the doors. The company doing the install had a heck of a time and broke the transom glass three times along with some of the glass door panels while trying to get those behemoths in place.
Knowing that, there was simply no way I was going to mess with removing the doors in order to remove the bottom threshold weather strip and finish the door. The top wasn’t an issue but the bottom getting properly finish just wasn’t going to happen.
About six years ago my neighbor had a very costly and weighty set of double front doors installed which he asked me to finish ( stain and seal).
Each door had four glass panels inserted at intervals from near the top of door down and a transom above the doors. The company doing the install had a heck of a time and broke the transom glass three times along with some of the glass door panels while trying to get those behemoths in place.
Knowing that, there was simply no way I was going to mess with removing the doors in order to remove the bottom threshold weather strip and finish the door. The top wasn’t an issue but the bottom getting properly finish just wasn’t going to happen.
We always seal tops and bottoms of new doors. It saved our butts once. We did a house and painted some doors in their finished basement. They definitely had a moisture issue. The steel exterior door we painted took a few days to dry. It was unbelievable. Anyways, all the wood interior doors ended up warping and the door company covered it because we had sealed all 6 sides. The general contractor thanked me and was a loyal customer for over 15 years (he retired last year).
Totally agree. This came as one big unit but of course they pulled the doors to install but because the door casing (including the transom) was so big it was easily wrenched out of true which resulted in the glass breaking several times. I really felt sorry for the install guys. I’m sure they had to eat all of the install time since it took so long over multiple tries.
Last year I finished some behemoth glass paneled lift and slide doors by Pella’s Duratherm division which couldn’t be removed by conventional means, at least not by me and my crew. They needed to be removed in order to finish the overlays, tops, bottoms, as well as parts of the headers and sills, much of which was visible when the doors were in the open position. The door manufacturer offered to ship and loan me their mechanized vacuum lift which they use to install or remove heavy glass panel doors for servicing. It’s sort of like a forklift with a vacuum suction cup attachment instead of forks. Having been banged by their sister company for a broken $2,600 IGU glass panel replacement only half the size a couple of years earlier, I said thanks but no thanks...I’m a finisher, not an installer. Not worth the risk of having a glass panel break or someone getting injured, or possibly even both.
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