Q: Hello, My house has a drafty roughly 1 3/4" x 35 3/4" wooden front door. It gets light use -- I open it perhaps a few times a day. It has a habit of chewing up home center vinyl finned door bottoms. It has a roughly 3/4" gap between the bottom of the wood door and threshold at the hinge end and a roughly 1/4" gap at the other side. What would you recommend as an affordable but tougher door bottom that would stop drafts at the bottom? Do I need to get it aligned before I put another door bottom on it? It has a 10x3" mail slot with flaps on both sides that have perhaps a 1/8" gap at the bottom where the flap meets the frame, which lets a lot of air through. The hole in the door is roughly 8.25 x 2.5 and unlined. Simply replacing the flaps with similar flaps or anything that fits the existing hole would be an easy job that I would be very comfortable taking on myself. Can you recommend a draft stopping option for it? How would the best option that uses the existing hole compare to say a draftguard slot? Images here:
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Thanks! -Rob
A: Rob- the first thing I would do would be to get your door hanging plumb as seen here:
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I would go so far as to consider adding an additional hinge on top of the existing to draw that door vertical as 70% of the doors weight is born by the top hinge as as you can see, that top hinge is quite a distance from the top of the door to begin with.
As attempting to gasket a door sagging will not be the best way to mitigate the leaking for a long term solution.
I see how you have the problem of crushing the door bottoms fins as a result of the uneven gap. "Righting" the door will help this issue.
I would consider replacing the existing door bottom with the Reese 1031A as seen here:
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I would then consider using the
Reese 320G 36" Automatic Door Bottom with Sponge Neoprene and Pile Seal insert - Gold Anodized Aluminum - Surface Mount
as seen here:
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and install the unit parallel to the floor so that it seals uniformly so that you can creat two lines of defence under the door.
In addition to the existing kerfed-in gasketing I would install the Reese 934G Door Jamb Weatherstrip - Gold Anodized Aluminum - Nylon Brush Insert as seen here:
Click Here
and this will allow you to creat an additional line of defense on the exterior of the opening.
Finally a leaking double flab mail slot is a tough piece of hardware to weatherstrip but do suggest you consider an outright replacement to the Dorex 462006 Draftguard - Deluxe Magazine Size Slot - Anodized Brass as seen here:
Click Here
as this will eliminate the draft issue.