Doors & Windows

[hatchet]

What is it that makes it so hard to install doors and windows correctly? Nothing makes me madder than having to re-hang doors in a house because a contractor has no clue on how to do it correctly.
It usually starts with the framing and gets worse from there. I spent half the weekend fixing all the doors in my house. I've heard excuses from humidity changes (that's pretty friggin thin) to the door was warped (get a new door).

Anybody have any other thoughts on this...like what excuses have you heard or the worst door you've seen.

The worst door I saw was at a friend of mines house...just bought the house...brand new. He had a self-closing hinge on a door leading to the garage. He was letting it close by itself one day, about a month after buying it, and the whole door fell into the garage. Trim popped off (which was the only thing holding it on).

[JohnScott]

I see more windows out of whack than doors. But I have seen the "nailing through the trim only" fiasco. I've actually heard so-called professionals tell others that nailing through the trim only is the right way to do it.

One of my bad habits is checking the reveal of every window I come across. I come across more badly set windows than properly set wondows. I was visited a 1.3 million dollar house that was framed by a couple of "high end only" framers. I thought they might be able to teach me a thing or two, seeing how my me and my crews did mostly m/f jobs. But every single window in that house was out of whack. When I asked them about it, they said it was from the house "settling". When I asked how they set the windows, the lead huy responded with, "The way you're supposed to set them. You close and lock the window, set it on three pencils, and nail off the flange."
Wow. I gotta say without exaggeration that there are more hacks out there than guys that know their stuff.
It all goes back to people underestimating the skill and knowledge required to be a good carpenter.

[RAS]

Well, to solve the settling issue, build a concrete home, using Insulated Concrete forms. Lets see what their excuse would be then....settling HA!

[Willymb24]

I am about to close in my back porch to make it into a room. I planned on putting french doors to go to the outside. Do you have any tips to make sure I do it right and it is not like the other doors you have seen. I will have a wood frame with hardyboard on the outside. Any advise you could share to make sure I do not hang it wrong like the other doors you have seen would be appreciated.

[BobJohnson504]

check out this site. Has some useful informatio and pictures. also will give price quotes right away.

http://www.thewindowstore.com/Installation.aspx