The Door

This is about a literal door. A door that has become a problem. It’s a problem I had hoped would be fixable. I am not a carpenter, but I was trained in a variety of tools and equipment in high school. Being of a scientific bent, I also studied algebra, trigonometry, geometry, physics, chemistry, and biology. My after-school activities included Coin Club, Photo Club (which included film development), Computer Club, Drama Club, and Science Club. I was President of that club after years of putting out a weekly mimeographed science newsletter full of synopses of various magazine articles I read. I was not a member of all those clubs simultaneously. I attended that high school for five years from ninth grade to twelfth, but I was given below the passing grade of 70 in three subjects during the second half of my junior year, so, I had to repeat the entire year, which I was OK with. I ended up with a nearly perfect understanding of Algebra, did well in Physics, and was placed in the Honor Society in my senior year. I actually tutored other students after school as my Honor Society duty, which is why I ended up dropping most clubs except Science and Drama.

However, my high school education gave me a keen “Theory & Practice” education. I studied drafting (mechanical drawing) and made tools to match. I learned a bit about woodworking, sheet metal work, and forge. I made a wooden wrench pattern from one of my drawings that was turned into a metal wrench. I cut and hammered, and tempered a cold chisel. I made a small sheet-metal box, spot-welded together, that I kept as a reminder of those years.

But, fast forward 52 years, long after I retired from disease-research laboratory work at a University medical school, and after I spent eight years making wine while being a background actor for TV and movies, and years studying acting, and suddenly I have to retrieve that woodworking knowledge from high school. The knowledge is there, and it comes back to me, but the skills are weak. I did physical labor during my working career, from electrical work for a carnival to foundry work for architect Paolo Solari at his Scottsdale, Arizona headquarters. My initial job for the University was working as a Mason’s helper. I ran a jackhammer, repaired concrete sidewalks, built block walls, built a baseball dugout, built an underground utility room, installed metal doors in block walls, and even laid a brick floor once in the University President’s former garage.

In addition, in 2006 & 2007, while still married, I added a 12-foot by 20-foot room to my wife’s house, removed the old tar and gravel roof and rotten wood underneath, and shingled the entire house roof and the addition’s roof. I’m handy, but not a skilled craftsman. I did design the addition but ordered a set of roof trusses (struts) that I had to install manually (and creatively). So I used a lot of power tools, but few hand tools other than a hammer, measuring tape, and levels. My wife kicked me out as soon as I finished, so I never got to enjoy the new addition, with the nice raised ceiling I’d installed. I had to leave her the job of completing the electrical wiring, the sheetrocking, and painting. I’ve never seen the completed work, but when she moved back to California, she offered (through my stepdaughter) to rent the place to me for $50 less than the rent I currently pay. I passed on that. It was a home, not just a house — I couldn’t live there alone with those memories. I suspect that what she wanted was free maintenance by me while I lived there, and rent.

The door? Yes, I said this was about a door. And it is. I’m getting to that. Here’s the door:

For the photo, I simply stood it up against the outside door frame.

It’s a thick outside door made of fir, unfinished, and has no cutouts for the hinges, doorknob, or deadbolt. Which is why it’s taking me a while. I contemplated fixing the old door, but it had been ruined when a very large dog door was cut into the lock stile, a lower panel, the lower mullion, and the bottom rail before I moved in. After I’d lived there a bit, I realized how easy it was to enter the house by reaching up through the door to unlock both the doorknob and the deadbolt in a matter of seconds. In addition, the hole itself was large enough to allow a boy or a slim adult access to my house while I was away from home. I hated that. It’s sealed off now.

THIS IS THE OLD DOOR. I HAD THE DOG DOOR SEALED OFF WITH A PIECE OF THE ORIGINAL DOOR.

↑__ The old door, above, is still there, hanging on. Unfortunately, I had two feral cats at the time that needed to come and go, so I installed a small cat door for them. However, over time, the door frame kept shifting downward. I tightened the hinges and had to move the mortise for the strike plate down. Recently it had shifted some more, and couldn’t go any lower. I contemplated various options, but I was able to continue using the door by lifting it up as I closed and locked it. Then one day it collapsed when I opened it. The hinge stile remained connected to the hinges, but the rest of the door pulled away. A lot of dust fell out. I was able to hammer the door back into a semblance of its previous self, but I had to use a crowbar to raise it up high enough to lock it in place. Fortunately, I have a back door.

Both the dog and cat entrances ruined the door’s integrity over time. I don’t know how long the doggy door had been there, but I probably installed the cat door 12 or 13 years ago. I’ve had to open the old door a few times, but it disintegrates a bit every time I do that. The last time, two large pieces of wood fell into the space between the upright “hinge stile” and the bottom “rail”, so I had to chop them out of the way with a handy screwdriver in order to close the door. The door is shot. No carpentry shop will attempt to repair it. They build from scratch only. $900 for a consignment door that was never picked up seemed a little steep. But most of their doors far exceeded that. New door? Not cheap either. A similar pine door would take 12 weeks to order from a retail door seller. I thought at first that I’d take this one apart. It only has old rotten dowels and glue holding it together. A couple dowels are completely shot. The glue holding the whole thing together has completely dried out. Repairing it is doable, but I have no access to equipment to replicate the convex edges on the panels, or the tongue pieces that fit into the door sides. I could have someone make them, but it was going to be an expensive, time-consuming project, and I’d have no door in the meantime.

I let the whole thing go as I pondered the options. Finally, I decided a new door would not only be less trouble but likely less expensive that any other option. However, on the day that I was to pick one up, the roofers had come to finish up a roof repair. It’s an odd roof. Not only is it a spray-foam-covered roof, but the housing complex I live in has a common boiler for hot water, which is also used to heat the house by heat exchange from copper tubing to the ductwork through a blower. The hot-water-feed pipe for the copper tubing runs through the roof. The plumbers nicked the pipe. Hot water geysered all over the place and leaked into the cut they had made to seal the roof off from my neighbor’s house. The roofers had recommended that we do our roofs at the same time to save money. The owner of the house with which I shared two walls refused. They had some patchwork done and were not worried about further leaks. The roofers found wet insulation on my side, which they dug out and replaced, but noticed that the neighbor’s house also had wet insulation. I told them, but to no avail. So the plumbers had to build a barrier in the roof between the walls we shared to keep their leaky roof from bleeding water into the insulation on my section of the roof.

WHAT A MESS! I had bucketfuls of water pouring in, mostly down the wall, but also over a small bookcase, some shelving, all the framed photos and art on the wall, and a couple of leaks through the wood ceiling. I got everything off of the wall, moved the bookshelf out, and removed the bottom layer of books whose spines had gotten splashed. There was no real damage, but there were hours of catching water and mopping up the excess with a closetful of towels, then running them and a couple of throw rugs through the washing machine as I exchanged wet for dry. The plumbers completed the work without incident. My neighbor is unhappy about a partly damp couch back, water that wetted the outside of a small frame containing a Navajo rug, and the stain on the ceiling. However, the ceiling had leaked in that house before and had never been completely repaired. I could see an old rotten circle of previous damage. The roofers owned up to causing the problem, but the owner wants compensation for more than the actual damage caused. Opportunistic and greedy, I’d say. This wouldn’t have been necessary if they had agreed to have both sections of roof sealed at the same time. But the owner is demanding compensation from the woman I rent my house from. The plumbing work had been properly approved by the HOA that controls our lives here, so there is no reason to blame my landlord. The leak was an accident that the plumbers caused and fixed. Damage is their responsibility.

PARTS OF A DOOR ASSEMBLY

So, finally, back to the door. It’s like a never-ending saga. Thank you for letting me tell the story. Writing is how I deal with stress. Since the door frame is 2 3/4 inches thick, firmly bolted to the adobe wall, I could not replace the frame as well. So I bought the door without cutouts for the hinges, handle, or lock. I need to fit the door to the frame, make sure it has enough space all around, and line up the existing hinges, etc., then mark and measure everything as it is. There is no other way to do this.

I’ve begun work on the door. I fired up my small circular saw and removed the correct amount from the lower rail. Pretty straight. Looks good. I am still working on the door’s upright lock stile, planing it down to the correct size. I’m told to remove 1/8 inch from both sides. The door company, however, recommended that I just remove wood from the lock stile side. I do not have a table saw, and no place to put one if I did, so I am falling back on my woodworking knowledge from high school. From experience, I know better than to try to use a circular saw with a 1/8 inch blade to remove 1/4 inch down the full length of the door. I own a good sturdy plane with a sharp blade that didn’t need much sharpening. I’ve scribed both sides and filled in the scratches with a pencil. I have planed both sides of that edge to a 45-degree angle up to, but not including the pencil marks. It’s difficult without a workbench to clamp it to. I currently have it lying flat on two sawhorses I had to purchase for this project. It’s heavy enough to mostly stay in place. Later, I will have to rig some way to hold the door upright on the opposite edge, so I can plane the length of that upright stile to remove the remaining wood. I think I can brace one edge against the fireplace banco, which is shorter than the width of the door, and use the sawhorses to hold it vertical. But I’d have to brace those lightweight sawhorses somehow, and I will have to step around them while planing. Later.

Then I have to attach the hardware, see how it fits and how freely the door moves. Then I will have to use a clear stain and sealant after I get approval from the HOA. They usually require that we use outside contractors, but I’m going to present this door as an emergency repair out of necessity. All they need to do is OK the color, which is bare wood, and on the approved list of colors. However, they don’t allow any work to be done without written permission obtained in writing in advance from the architecture committee. They are very slow to answer. They could fine the landlord. I’ll have to see how this goes. I’ll update that story later.

Next up – a new evaporative cooler. I had to remove the old one before the roofers finished sealing the roof. It was a rusty, leaking hulk that I’ve kept running for 14 years, tightening the V-belt, oiling the bearings, replacing water pumps, tubing, and floats, and replacing parts of the rusted-out metal sides. A new one in that same size was on sale at Lowe’s Hardware store for $369. I paid $35 for estimates of what it would take to purchase one and have it delivered and installed: $1922.52. That’s absurd. I suspected that, however. All I did was remove the old cooler. The ductwork is still in place. The electrical conduit is still there for attaching the unit to power. He wanted to replace all that, and there was no reason to do that. My advice: buy a cooler, but install it yourself or have an independent contractor install it.

I’m going to do it myself. The landlord’s nephew will assist me in picking one up and getting it on the roof. Stay tuned.

Basic Evaporative Cooler, aka desert cooler, swamp cooler, etc.