Storm Door Installation Mistakes to Avoid

The weather is often unpredictable. Yesterday it’s 70′s and sunny, today it’s 50′s and raining. Today we canceled all of storm door installs because of teh weather. And as always, there’s one customer who is not happy.

Well, for those of you trying to do it yourself, a bit of advice. Don’t install a storm door when it’s raining outside. The next thing I hear you thinking is, “Well, my porch is covered.” That’s the typical response. My response is “It doesn’t matter.”

The problem is one of humidity.

If you have ever wondered why you have doors that stick closed (or opened) somedays and not others, it’s the humidity. When it’s raining or snowing, humidity is high. The wood door jambs take in the extra humidity and swell which causes the door opening to shrink. Now you have door that is just a smidge to small for it’s opening, and thus it “sticks.” The next day when it’s sunny, the wood door jamb dries out and shrinks back into place. Then tadaah, the door now no longer sticks.

Back to storm doors. If you install a storm door when it’s raining or snowing, not only is there a risk of injury from electrical shock, you are creating a headache for yourself in the future.

Installing a storm door when the door jamb is wet means that when the door jamb dries out and shrinks, the new storm door now may have gapping around it and may not close and latch properly. Then you ahve to redo the entire install. Not fun if you hated doing it the first time.

Need another analogy? When you lose weight your pants don’t fit. Why? Either your pants are to big or you’re too small. Same thing with storm doors. If installed during rain or snow, when the wooden door jamb loses its’ “water-weight” on the next sunny day, the storm door becomes to big for the opening.

So next time you have a storm door installer cancel your install due to rain or snow, just know they are looking out for your best interests and are trying to save you a headache in the future.

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