Replacing the front door is a process that requires certain skills. Most often, it is installed by 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 warranty on its goods. The absence of marriage in the product must be checked upon purchase: look at the hinges, locks and other devices.
Special tool
Replacing the entrance metal door involves the use of a special and electric tool. If it is not, you need to pre-attend to the acquisition. Fortunately, everything you need can be found in any hardware store.
Power tools include a hand-held circular saw, hammer drill and screwdriver.
Other fixtures are a plumb line, level, tape measure, hammer, hacksaw for metal and wood, screwdriver, pliers and pliers. Be sure to have safety glasses and construction gloves - safety precautions must not be forgotten.
Preparing the door for installation
When receiving a steel door from a store, it is very important to make sure that the product is fully equipped. After all, after delivery, the manufacturer will relieve all responsibility for the condition of the door. And if the company’s specialists install it, they can easily get the missing parts from their warehouse. In the case when the landlord himself is engaged in this, he will be forced to run to the store for every element of accessories that is not included in the kit.
Before installing the new door, you must protect it from scratches and damage by pasting a film on it. The same goes for the door frame. It can be covered with ordinary tape.
Dismantling the old door
The dismantling of the old door is included in the estimate of any construction organization installing new doors, that is, the service is paid, so you can do it yourself. The canvas itself is removable easily. It is enough to pry open the door with a crowbar and lift it. If the door has disassembling hinges, then you can remove the canvas simply by dismantling 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 sawed off with a manual electric saw.
The vacant opening must be cleaned of all protruding elements and purged of dust.
Doorway preparation
Replacing the entrance metal door in the apartment involves the installation of 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 easily enter this 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 adjusted 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 laid with brick or cinder blocks.
If the opening is already the required size, then the wall is cut off with an electric saw. With a brick it is easier to do than with a concrete slab, but still it is possible. Only for cutting concrete will you need a special diamond-coated disk. It is not necessary to use a sledgehammer or punch to expand the doorway. This method can cause the wall to weaken, as it is covered with microcracks. They are invisible to the eyes, but eventually spread to dangerous sizes.
Since the steel door is much heavier than the wooden one, its frame is never installed on a wooden floor - only on a concrete base. If not, you need to do it. If the wall is thin (up to 150 mm), then it needs to be strengthened 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 with the box.
Usually, these types of work are done when replacing Chinese entrance doors, because they are much easier 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. To set the vertical plane, a plumb line is used, for the horizontal - the level. 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 scheduled repair and, accordingly, modernization. This means that the design of the box is modern, and the box is mounted on anchor bolts. They are clogged through holes in the box at the end of the wall. After checking the levels of the planes, the anchor is tightened with a screwdriver or a special key.
There are doors with fastening to the wall plane. Usually these are steel strips welded to the box, 3 pieces on each side and 2 on top. In the strips there are holes for anchor bolts, with which the box is attached to the wall. For security against breaking, 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 method of replacing the front door is most often used in country houses and cottages - it is the most reliable. It’s quite difficult to break such a door.
Door hanging
After installing the box, the stage of hanging the door leaf begins. In modern doors, folding hinges are used, but during assembly it is not necessary to tighten all fastenings at once. Before this, you need to make sure that the door closes easily, does not catch the box, and all the locks work fine. If there are comments on the work, the hinges are additionally configured, and only after that all the fasteners are tightened with a special screwdriver or key.
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.
Clearance Clearance
If the replacement of the front door was carried out using anchor fastening, then gaps between the wall and the box are not excluded. They need to be poured. To prevent heat from leaving the apartment or house, thermal insulation is first placed in the slot. Usually this is construction foam.
After that, the cracks are poured 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 together with part of the wall around the door.
How to care for a metal door
After repair and replacement of entrance doors, it is imperative to take care of them. Otherwise, sooner or later the product will not only lose its appearance, but will also stop closing - locks or loops will break.
The door should be washed regularly using cleaning agents, unless the sheet is covered with leather or its equivalent. In this case, other cleaning agents are used.
Hinges and locks should be regularly lubricated with oil. When a suspicious crunch appears in the castle, it is best to contact the master. After all, if the lock fails, it simply will not work to break the iron door, installed in accordance with all the rules. So locks and locks should work without deviations.
It is not recommended to slam the iron door heavily, the wall around the box may crack. Strong slamming is typical for doors with poorly functioning locks, which refers to the item on timely care and repair of locks.
Conclusion
Replacing the iron entrance door is not a difficult process, if all the recommendations and rules are followed. 2 people can easily do this work in 3-4 hours, so the apartment will not remain open for a long time. After all, the main thing is to install the door, and you can do the finishing of the slope and pouring concrete 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 not be able to help with anything, only for an additional fee.