It's amazing, but I get to post the very first change to our home that doesn't concern something Infinity screwed up first! Way cool! AND it's obscure to boot!
This is the door to the little storage building that sits in front of the house that Dad had chock-a-block full of old Thunderbird parts, dried paint cans, mouldy camping equipment and my personal favorite, empty boxes to things he no longer owned. Out of sight, out of mind.
However, since this lovely structure was built in 1983 without much thought put into it, there were problems.
Pretty early on Dad and I both noticed that there was no threshold moulding under the door and when he stepped on it it bent pretty sharply. UDC came out and installed the hunk of lumber you see there under the door and painted it and said "See ya". Well, 39 years later that hunk of untreated pine looked like this...
Well the door's frame was just as rotten which is why the door didn't close correctly.
So we had Robert come out to replace the door. It's a standard door so no problem right? What do you think?
He got the old door and framing out and went to test fit the new door. It was almost 3 inches too tall!! WHAT?? We re-measured the door, re-measured the old door, same size. WTF? Test fit again, almost 3 inches to tall. Something was messing with us. Then we both stepped inside the building and let out a collective groan!
There was no header! Instead, the boys at UDC had poured more that 4 inches cement mortar on top of the installed door kit. You can see the impression of the door frame there in the cement but it was not holding the door in place because it was cracked and it moved about. Above this blob of worthless sand and cement is a void of almost 6 inches!
Why was there no header OR footer on this door? Who knows. Best guess is to fall back on the lack of standards present at the time. There is no one we can ask to be sure.
It certainly explains why every time Dad tried to repair this door it would not stay fixed. The entire door kit could move!
Well Robert removed the blob, installed a proper header, filled the remainder of the void with expanding foam and installed the door kit, in the rain.
He also installed a new footer, you can see it in the picture of the closed door, it is pressure treated redwood. It is not likely to degrade the way the old footer did.
You just gotta love it! In the past I would complain of such things at our first house and Dad would smile at me and say "Ah, the joys of being a homeowner." But I am sure that if he came across this himself he would have griped about it for weeks. I am also sure that someplace he is sitting and watching all of this transpire and just laughing his biscuits off.
If that's the case all I can say is "Alright Dad, I get it. You can stop now."
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