Hall flooring - front door with hardly any clearance

nh470

Just discovered courtesy of the chap we organised to lay semi-solid oak in living room, dining room and hall that the front door has too little space under it to allow for the wood floor - door wouldn't be able to open! Don't think we can plane the door and the chap doesn't think even gluing it down in the hall would leave enough room (floating it elsewhere). He has suggested tiles for the hall but not mad on the idea, although have checked out relevant threads for some ideas.

Divine inspiration anyone?! Any magic way to make wood work with a low door? Floor is concrete, ground floor.

Cheers in advance.

dingding

Why can you not plane the door

nh470

sorry - should have explained myself better. It's a new house and it has a door set in a frame which includes a long window beside the door - normal type of thing. Asked about planing and our chap reckons it would wreck the seal around the door. presumably if we plane the door there'll be a gap with the frame. any thoughts?

Jambo

NH470 -
you could use a god quality draught excluder or else like in my folks house they inset into the floor a rectangullar bristle doormat in the doorswing area ( which is easilly removed/replaced/cleaned ) surrounded by brass beeding to make it seemlessly blend in too the wood around !!

charlesanto

The area immediatly inside the door put down a mat - one of those hairy ones maybe.
Then lay the wooden floor right up to it, with nice brass transitions.

Lex Luthor

Have you bought the wood yet?

What is the distance between the floor and door bottom?

I had similar issue when I was laying my floor as it originally was spec'd out to have 18mm battens under the floor. Eventually, we decided to go with 12mm battens which just about worked and gave me the clearance I needed

nh470

Thanks for the posts everyone - may have to go with mat idea all right. Lex -haven't been in since we heard about this problem but I think there's very little clearance. We were only thinking of floating the floor or even gluing it for the hall so it wouldn't need anywhere near the same clearance as a nail down but there's still apparently not enough room. Will have to make a trip out and have a good look myself.

Cheers for the help. And of course any other ideas gratefully received!

big_al

Simple enough.

- Remove the door
- Remove the alu/rubber seal from the bottom of the door
- Cut 15mm (roughly thickness of your new board and underlay)
- Replace the door seal
- Remove the threshold strip (bottom of door frame)
- Add 15mm with a slip of wood (door piece if snug enough). Screw fix this and seal with sealant type adhesive (you can paint up later)
- Re-fit the threshold strip.
- Re-fit the door

Should do the trick. PS, I wouldn't let that 'chap' near my floor ;-)

Hope this helps.

big_al

Judean Reg

Had the same problem myself. I contacted the people who installed the door and they sent somebody out to take a shaving off the door, re-seal it and put an new, higher threshold to meet the height of the floor which sealed the door up nicely. He was done in about 20 minutes and charged us 50 Euro for the pleasure. We could have done it ourselves but by tampering with the door we would have broken the terms of our garantee and we didn't want to do that. Well worth the money IMO.

yop

Strange one that, now we had a suggestion from a carpenter mate of mine who suggested that we put down a hairy mate in a cut out of the timber, to protect the timber from the elements when the doo was open and also to remove the dirt of shoes and boots when someone walked in.

kadman

Fit a 25 or 32 mm hiper bar excluder. Suitable for fit direct to concrete or into a rebated door frame section. Instructions included, probably an hours work in total.

kadman

rooferPete

Hi NH....

Is your door timber or pvc ?

Timber is easy to sort out, PVC or Aluminium and it's a whole different ball park.

.

nh470

Thanks again for the help. Lex - door is wood thank God. Kadman - what is a hiper bar excluder?

Cheers!

rooferPete

Hi,

Kadman Speak English, well Irish style anyway

NH,

I have to agree with Big Al, since the door is timber the floor fitter obviously is not a carpenter.

.

kadman

Sorry for any confusion,

http://www.directdoors.com/exterior-doors-interior-doors-handles-locks-and-all-other-types-of-ironmongery-products/door-fittings-etc-/bry-dry-threshold-draught-excluder-p290

This is the standard hiper bar, 25mm, 30mm, 32mm. In every hardware store, made by Exitex.

Rooferpete, is me inglish kwite satisphaktory naw den..:D

kadman:)

delly

Had the same problem myself with the door on my first house. Unfortunately the frame around the door was plastered in, so i could not take the door off to shave some wood off.

The solution was unorthodox and a little hodge podge, but it worked. I got 3 washers about 2-3mm thick and cut out a small section. I then raised the door off its pins and knocked the washers onto the pins and then lowered the door. Sorted.

alanc

A friend of mine had a similar problem when laying tiles in his hall. What he ended up doing was to 'sand' down his concrete floor. It was a pain to do it but it solved his problem. Would only work if you had a small amount to go down.

AL.

nh470

Thanks again to everyone for their help. Door has been shaved (twice!) so hopefully that should do the trick.

AlanC - any idea how your friend sanded the concrete floor? Could a solution to another little problem we have elsewhere - don't even want to go into it!

alanc

nh470,

Not sure what machine he used but will find out later and let you know tomorrow. As far as I know it was just hired out from a regular hire centre. Very dusty but did the trick.

AL.

alanc

nh470,

The name of the hire tool is a scapular, he said that all he needed was to sand down 2 or 3mm to get clearance to open his front door. Any hire shop should know what you are looking for.

AL.