Spyke
lemmy.world

For what it’s worth, this would be intentional. They would have had to buy a blank door panel and make the lockset holes and hinge gains themselves. The handle holes aren’t center in the door, and the hinges aren’t equidistance either.

So not an idiot, and at least a little handy if they didn’t just pay someone to intentionally do this as well. Most people would just buy prehung doors, especially the front.

121
sh.itjust.works

My first gig was construction. The foreman and another guy were talking about how pre-hung doors were the best thing ever made.When I asked them why they believed this they worked with me to hang a door. Fuck that, pre-hung doors are like the 4th greatest creation of the 20th century.

48
sh.itjust.works

I've hung exactly one door from scratch myself. In the time it took me to do that, I could have put up 8 prehung doors.

That's not even a little bit of an exaggeration.

22
sh.itjust.works

The only catch is that door we made is the only door that 35 years later has no gaps and closes and opens perfectly according to the current owner (grandson of the og owner).

17

That makes sense, yeah. The one I had to do was for a frame that was basically built into a house that was made at some point in the 1950's so there wasn't any choice but to cut it and chisel it all out and measure and align everything manually...

It did open and close pretty nice though.

4
lemmy.world

I literally just replaced all the interior doors in my house myself, its not hard if you use a jig, two routers, a faceplate jig, strike plate jig, impact driver, two drill drivers with one hooked up to a portable drill press and the other with an augur, another drill driver with the hinge pilot hole gadgets, saw stands, door stand, track saw, and air bags to lift the doors. Oh, ohhh

Except firedoors, fuck those overweight mother fuckers and their stupid hidden self shutting chains

20
lemmy.world

I had to do one with just hand tools. No power tools allowed on site, and dragging the door inside outside was a 15 minute ordeal each way. And had to do the frame by hand anyways…

So hand cranked hand auger for the lockset, and a chisel and hammer for the hinge gains. Took me a whole damn day to do that one door.

4
lemmy.world

Yeah there is good reason to my madness when it comes to the number of tools I used, no faffing about changing bits or resetting jigs or manual measuring. I would reckon about an hour a door from unpacking it to having it fully trimmed and hung. Would have been a bit quicker but I went with magnetic latches so they needed a 80mm back box and my 1/2 router only does 70mm deep so I had to use the drill press with a Forstner to get the remaining 10mm clearance needed.

I have done doors by hand, thats about 3 to 4 hours for me if I do not have to make a proper square backbox and I can get away with a round one via an auger. I do not like the bite of an auger if the backbox depth is even remotely close to the edge of the frame for the door due to the bite you get dragging you in further than you intended even when turning by hand. I much prefer a Forstner, but I will be fucked if I am going to hand crank one of those into oak.

Its decidedly longer if my chisels aren't sharp, having to hand sharpen them is a PITA when its more than once a day, I wish I had the space for a wheel to speed that up. Other dream thing is a 360 degree door vise that holds the entire door and lets you spin it 360 degrees without having to take it off your stands and hand rotate it. Would make switching from hinges to mortise to handles a breeze.

3
lemmy.world

I worked as a Carpenter for a GC (employed, not contractor), so it was always a fine line between keeping us busy and being efficient by using the right specializations. Yeah I can do some drywall taping and mudding, but god if we aren’t busy, please sub that crap out, it’ll look better anyways. But I’ll also take the 3 days of pay instead.

3
lemmy.world

Plastering I will only ever do for myself, and then only to save money as I am too tight to pay someone else to do it, much the same reason I do tiling or plumbing. They are one of those jobs like fine carpentry that is always better done by an expert with the years of just doing that.

Plasterboard layup often gets left to the builder in the UK, assuming they can actually level it properly.

3

You mean lath and plaster? They still use that? I mean installing drywall panels and taping the joints and skim coating. But yeah plastering is more like concrete finishing, an art, and definitely left to the professionals.

Would rather place and finish concrete over mudding and taping though, better on my hands.

3

When I was a kid, my dad had a friend who had been a carpenter, and retired, but he would still hang doors. He said the amount of money he could charge for that made it worth doing them.

10
sh.itjust.works

No doubt, if your home is older you need a door guy to fix problems. In my modular shitbox you can just rehang a new prehung door.

4
lemmy.world

I suppose it doesn't matter much in the US where those are more rare, but in the rest of the world where there are a lot of old buildings where absolutely nothing is straight in any direction whatsoever, installing a door or window properly is a major endeavour if you want it to be properly balanced. Hanging the door on is a minor part of the whole affair.

3
sh.itjust.works

Hanging a door isn’t placing the door on it’s hinges, rather, it is making the frame that the hinges are attached to. Making a frane that is the correct size, fits perfectly and leaves little gap with the floor is a lot of work.

1
lemmy.world

My point stands, aligning the damn thing in all directions and managing to integrate it with walls that definitely aren't straight is a lot of work.

2
sh.itjust.works

And doors are the hardest part to do that with. A grown man can hold most windows together with their hands whereas no human can by themselves hang a door. It is harder to do doors from scratch than any other normal part of a home’s interior.

1
lemmy.world

I’ve installed hundreds of frames and hung accompanying doors by myself.

Tools exist for this purpose

And it’s funny you mention windows by yourself, that’s the one task that actually requires more than one person because of their size… even if you use a crane, there’s a second person for the crane. You also need someone inside to wedge and shim it, while it’s attached from outside, it’s not secured from the inside.

2

If you are constructing your own frame, which in the USA is going to be wood you don’t need a crane. You only need a crane if you are installing massive windows.

these homes were built without cranes how do you think they got windows to begin with?

0
lemmy.world

Would have been a lot less effort to install a normal door normally, then install a window in the bottom of it.

6

I dont know, I know how to install doors, I dont know fuck all about windows. This is how I would have done it lol.

4
bitchkatreply
lemmy.world

Why are you assuming they didn't just flip the whole thing?

-3
lemmy.world

Door frames don’t have “a bottom”, and the handle not being nearer to the top than the bottom. If they flipped the door and frame, the handle/lockset would be about 20” higher up the door. And as also stated, the hinges don’t work that way either.

12
bitchkatreply
lemmy.world

You put way too much effort into explaining why my joke won't work. But you could disassemble the jams and flip them around.

-4

No… you cannot… the hinges don’t work that way, you would have to re router them.

And at that point, you would just buy a regular old door kit and do it yourself….

Guys I found the idiot.

9
M137reply
lemmy.world

the whole part after the comma is fucked. No capitalized I, what you said and then no punctuation at the end. It's like they were trying to make it ironic.

13

Or the ghosts that frequent my street. Cause ain't no one around half the time.

2

they'd get used to it and eventually respond the same as when it wasn't there. source: got a big metal screen door so i can leave the main door open and get a good breeze

8

I agree with you. There's a house near a school by me that has a looking Glass for the dog, and all the kids get scared cuz he barks at them all

1
lemmy.world

...or you could install a screen door, leave it closed but open the wood door...

8

yeah if you're breaking a window to get in may as well break an actual window

9

In here our doors open to outside, so you can't kick them in and as weather goes below -30C in the winter they're pretty sturdy for insulation. Also nearly every door has some kind of abloy-lock which is practically pick-proof and hinges have safety pins so you can't pull the door out that way (again, that's more to do with insulation and weight management than safety). And commonly right next to the door is a nice window to let daylight in.

5
lemmy.ml

I wonder if the lock has to be fitted upside down too... logic dictates that it should be seperate, but you never know with dog owners

1

A typical door comes without the hole(s) for the handle hardware (and/or deadbolt), and the installer has to drill those himself. It would be a bit of an issue to take an existing door and flip it over but not that much of a problem to install it upside down from new.

5