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A pre-hung
interior door has the side jambs and the head jamb already assembled with the door in place with hinges and held in place,
temporarily with nails through the jamb or an oversized plastic screw through the hole for the strike plate through the hole
for the backset and held in place with a plastic nut in the door knob hole. My first step is to determine all
the door locations and put the doors next to their final locations. This way I will know right away if there are any doors
missing and they can be ordered as soon as possible. The door locations will be shown on the house blueprints. They should
show both the size and the way the door swings. If there are no blueprints available I can usually figure them out
by following a few simple rules. First I will take a door opening and determine what door it needs. Doors will normally swing
into a room. If there is a light switch located next to the door opening the door will need to swing away from it so the switch
is accessible as you open the door. If there is a wall next to the opening running at a right angle the door will probably
open against it. The finished door size will be the rough opening less two inches. Therefore, if I have an opening that is
2’ 8” the door size will be 2’6”. The door will be labeled as a right or left hand door. To determine
which is which simply stand in front of a door or doorway as the door will swing toward you. If the knob is on the left it
is a left hand door if it is on the right it is right hand.
Smaller
closet doors will open with the doors swinging out while large walk-in closet will usually swing into the closet. Once all
the door locations have been determined and the doors set out next to their locations I will begin to hang them. Here is a
list of tools that I commonly use to install a door. Six-foot door level Cedar door shims. Fine back cut saw. Pneumatic
15-gauge nail gun
2 ½ inch nails. Jig saw. Framing square. The first thing to consider is the position of the door opening, as it will
affect how I install the door. If there is an intersecting wall next to the door opening and the framer didn’t have
the foresight to move the rough opening far enough from the corner for the door casing to fit without ripping it smaller I
will shift the door over as far as I can to leave more room for the casing. If the door has a wall on each side, like at the
end of a hallway, I will center the door to make it look more balanced. If there is a finished floor already installed, like
a hardwood floor, I will cut the bottom of the doorjamb off by the same amount as the thickness of the flooring. This will
keep the tops of all the doors at approximately the same height.
I will
place a shorter level across the floor where the door will install and check how level it is. If the floor isn’t level
I will cut a little more off the side of the jamb that will rest on the side where the floor is highest. If the hardwood flooring
makes a transition to a lower flooring surface in the middle of the doorway I will notch the bottom of the doorjamb to match
the floor. This will prevent a small opening at the bottom of the door that might show when the other flooring is installed.
This is especially important if the lower floor will be vinyl, as it will finish considerably lower than the hardwood floor.
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| Keeping the doors at the same height makes a big difference when the doors are close together. |
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