Back to the Basics - Weather Stripping

NOTE:  This blog story takes place just before "Replacement Window RFP". 

That chair is my place.  Used to
 be the coldest seat in the house.

We had just received a sizable windfall and were pondering all the options.  Our drafty Ball home was freezing us to death in the winter.  No joke, you needed a coat at dinner time if you sat in the chair closest to the door.  We needed new doors and windows, but the cash was only going cover one of the options.  The decision did not become apparent until the furnace crapped out.

Lucky for us, our HVAC guys are good.  Charles from B&D Refrigeration came out to fix the furnace issue, and we posed the question to him.  He took one look at the doors and gave us the answer.  "I'd get the windows and just repair the doors".  The builder either forgot to install weather stripping, or it was worn out so bad that the wind could blow in.   To make matters worse, the door was not hung level.  Excessive upward force was required on the door if you wanted to throw the dead bolt.  On a bright, sunny day you could see a nice sliver of light between the door and the frame.  The next call was to our favorite handyman.

We had a backlog of stuff for Alvin to do:

• Paint exterior
• Repair bricking on back of house
• Seal doors
• New door hardware
• Level doors

Alvin is one of the best handymen in the area.  If you don't have a guy like him, you really need one.  Compared to me, he's the Yoda of home repair.  He can wave his hands and things magically go into place.  He can do stuff with vice grips that I can't pull of with real tools.  We've known him for 10 years and hope that he'll never retire.

One of the things we had Alvin do was install new door handles and dead bolts on all the doors.  For some reason I don't understand, the back doors had different keys than the front.  That's just a little too complex for me.  One house key is plenty.  Rekeying the locks in your place is something that should be done shortly after move-in, and we hadn't done it yet.  Who knows how many people had keys?

Alvin reset the door, repaired the rotten wood, and installed something called weather stripping.  Weather stripping is a foamy, rubberish material that goes around your entire door frame.  The stuff comes in all different shapes and styles, so check your doors before heading off to Lowe's.  Our doors have a groove around the entire frame, and the weather stripping has a tab that slides right into the groove.  After doing a little research for this article and looking at the doors, I bet installation took about 15 minutes on each door.

The black stuff is weather stripping



Top Pic

So what happened?  The difference was night and day.  Where a screen door previously existed, a solid door materialized.  My chair is no longer the coldest seat in the house, and the coat can stay in the closet.

My recommendation?  Check the weather stripping if your doors are drafty.  Odds are that you can do a simple repair that won't cost must money. 
Would I do the job myself next time?  Yep.
What about the next windfall?   Hmmmmmmm.....