Replacing the front door is a process that requires certain skills and abilities. Most often, it is installed by the specialists of the manufacturer. It is clear that this service is paid, its price is included in the price. When the budget does not allow you to pay for such services, you can install the door yourself. But you need to remember that the company at the same time removes the guarantee for its product. The absence of marriage in the product must be checked upon purchase: look at hinges, locks and other devices.
Special tool
Replacing an entrance metal door involves the use of a special and electric tool. If it is not, you need to take care of the acquisition in advance. Luckily, you can find everything you need at any hardware store.
Power tools include hand circular saw, rotary hammer andscrewdriver.
Other tools - plumb, level, tape measure, hammer, hacksaw for metal and wood, screwdriver, pliers and pliers. Be sure to have safety glasses and construction gloves - you must not forget about safety.
Preparing the door for installation
When you receive a steel door from the store, it is very important to make sure that the product is complete. After all, after delivery, the manufacturer will remove all responsibility for the condition of the door. And if it is installed by the company's specialists, then they can easily take the missing parts from their warehouse. In the case when the owner of the apartment himself does this, he will be forced to run to the store for each piece of fittings that is not included in the kit.
A new door must be protected from scratches and damage by sticking a film on it before installation. The same goes for the door frame. It can be closed with ordinary tape.
Dismantling the old door
Dismantling the old door is included in the estimate of any construction organization that installs new doors, that is, the service is paid, so you can do it yourself. The fabric itself is easy to remove. It is enough to pry open the door with a crowbar and lift it up. If there are dismantling hinges on the door, then you can remove the canvas simply by disassembling them with a screwdriver.
To remove the door frame, you first need to understand how it is attached. If on anchor bolts, then they are easy to unscrew. If the box is welded to steel mortgages driven into the wall, then they will have to be sawn off by hand.hacksaw.
The vacated opening must be cleaned of all protruding elements and blown out of dust.
Preparing the doorway
Replacing an entrance metal door in an apartment involves installing a modern, and therefore standard door. GOST for a steel entrance door is developed in accordance with fire safety requirements. The width of the opening should be at least 86 cm. Usually it is 96 cm - almost any furniture and household appliances can easily enter such an opening.
In other words, the width and height of the door cannot be changed, and this is technically quite difficult to do. Therefore, a doorway is fitted under the door. If it is much wider than the new door, it can be brought to the desired size by installing a vertical channel or two corners. The gap between the metal structure and the wall must be filled with bricks or cinder blocks.
If the opening is already the required size, then the wall is cut down with an electric saw. It is easier to do this with brick than with a concrete slab, but it is still possible. Only for cutting concrete you will need a special diamond-coated blade. It is not necessary to use a sledgehammer or a puncher to expand the doorway. This method can cause weakening of the wall, as it becomes covered with microcracks. They are invisible to the eye, but eventually spread to dangerous sizes.
Since a steel door is much heavier than a wooden one, its frame is never installed on a wooden floor - only on a concrete base. If it doesn't exist, it needs to be done. If the wall is thin (up to 150 mm), then itneed to be reinforced with a metal corner and concrete. That is, you need to cast new door slopes, reinforced with fittings and corners, otherwise the heavy door will subsequently simply fall out of the wall along with the frame.
Usually, these types of work are done when replacing Chinese front doors, because they are much lighter due to thin metal.
Door installation
When everything is ready to replace the front door, you need to start by installing and fixing the door frame. A plumb line is used to set the vertical plane, and a level is used for the horizontal plane. When the box is exposed on all planes, you can mount it to the wall.
There are several mounting methods, and they depend on the design of the box. Most often, the replacement of the front door in the apartment takes place as part of a planned repair and, accordingly, modernization. This means that the design of the box is modern, and the box is attached to anchor bolts. They are hammered through the holes in the box into the end of the wall. After checking the levels of the planes, the anchors are tightened with a screwdriver or a special key.
There are doors with fastening to the plane of the wall. Usually these are steel strips welded to the box, 3 pieces on each side and 2 on top. The strips have holes for anchor bolts, with which the box is attached to the wall. To protect against burglary, the strips are welded on the inside of the box so that they cannot be cut from the outside.
There is another way - the box is simply poured with concrete after setting the horizontal and vertical levels. This replacement methodthe front door is most often used in country houses and cottages - it is the most reliable. Breaking down such a door is quite difficult.
Hanging the door
After installing the box, the stage of hanging the door leaf begins. In modern doors, collapsible hinges are used, but during assembly it is not necessary to tighten all the fasteners at once. Before that, you need to make sure that the door closes easily, does not catch the box, and all locks work properly. If there are comments on the work, the hinges are additionally adjusted, and only after that all fasteners are tightened with a special screwdriver or wrench.
There is an easy way to check the correct installation of the door leaf - you need to put a sheet of paper on the threshold and close the door. The sheet should come out of the slot with little effort.
Fix gaps
If the front door was replaced with an anchor, then gaps between the wall and the frame are not excluded. They need to be filled. To prevent heat from leaving the apartment or house, thermal insulation is first placed in the slot. This is usually construction foam.
After that, the cracks are filled with concrete. This will give the box extra strength. After the concrete has dried, to give an aesthetic appearance to the slope, it must be puttied and painted along with part of the wall around the door.
How to properly care for a metal door
After repair and replacement of entrance doors, it is necessary tolook after them. Otherwise, sooner or later, the product will not only lose its appearance, but also stop closing - the locks or hinges will break.
The door should be washed regularly using cleaning products, except when the canvas is upholstered in leather or its equivalent. In this case, other cleaning agents are used.
Hinges and locks should be oiled regularly. When a suspicious crunch appears in the castle, it is best to contact the master. After all, if the lock fails, it will not work just like that to break the iron door, installed in accordance with all the rules. So locks and locks should work without deviation.
It is not recommended to slam the iron door hard, the wall around the box may crack. Strong slamming is typical for doors with poorly functioning locks, which refers to the point about the timely care and repair of locks.
Conclusion
Replacing an iron front door is not a difficult process if you follow all the recommendations and rules. This job can easily be done by 2 people in 3-4 hours, so the apartment will not stay open for long. After all, the main thing is to install the door, and finishing the slope and pouring concrete can be done the next day. The main thing is to be confident in your abilities, because the limit will take a lot of time, and the manufacturer will no longer be able to help, only for an additional fee.
