How to install a metal door with your own hands

Recommendation points

• What tool is needed
• Preparing the opening and checking the door before installation
• Installation of a door frame on a level, fastening methods
• Door leaf hinge and adjustment
• Sealing and sealing

Installing entrance doors is not difficult at all, and, nevertheless, the cost of such services is quite high. In order not to overpay, read this article: in it we will describe in detail the process of installing entrance metal doors and share some professional secrets.

Almost all modern doors, including cheap Chinese doors with a tinplate, have a standard door frame fastening scheme. Therefore, the complexity of the installation depends rather on the material of the walls and the quality of the doorway. If you were able to carefully dismantle the old door and cleaned the opening down to solid concrete or brickwork, there should be no unexpected installation problems..

What tool is needed

To install an entrance door using the most current technology, you will need a punch with a 12×350 mm drill, a set of ratchet heads, a building level with a magnetic edge, a screwdriver and masking tape. In most cases, the fastening is carried out with frame anchors 12×130 mm. Select the head form factor (for a screwdriver or a wrench) depending on the size of the mounting holes in the door frame.

An alternative method of installing the door involves attaching it to reinforcing rods driven into holes pre-drilled in concrete and welded either directly to the door frame or to auxiliary plates. Practice shows that it is better to install doors with a high level of burglary protection on reinforcing rods, which, in addition to the strength of the fastening, can withstand a significant weight of the door. An angle grinder and a welding inverter are required from an additional tool, a wrench and a screwdriver are not needed.

Preparing the opening and checking the door before installation

Before installing the door, it is necessary to clean the opening from traces of finishing materials and old joint filler. Entrance metal doors are always directly attached to the load-bearing layer of the wall. If you plan to fill the technological joint with cement mortar, the surface must be primed, and when filling with polyurethane foam, simply cleaned of dust.

The dimensions of the doorway should be 4–5 cm larger than the dimensions of the door frame. If necessary, the opening can be expanded by knocking down a layer of the required thickness with a perforator only on one side. If the opening is 12 cm or more larger than the door frame, between the door and the opening, it is necessary to insert a section of a profile pipe of square section with pre-prepared through holes that coincide with the standard attachment points.

Before installing the door, make sure that the sealed bag with keys is not damaged, open it and check the functionality of all locks and bolts. To facilitate the installation of heavy steel doors, the leaf must be removed from the hinges. Chinese tin doors, due to their low weight, can be assembled. Before installation, cover the outer surface of the door frame with masking tape.

Installation of a door frame on a level, fastening methods

Place the door frame on the floor and level the threshold horizontally by placing the required number of spacers or mounting wedges under the door. Check the verticality of the installation by applying a level to the place where the platbands are attached. The door frame must be installed flush with the outer wall. Secure the door firmly in the opening using mounting or homemade wooden wedges of different sizes installed from the inside.

If the door is attached to the opening directly through the side of the box, drill a through hole, insert the anchor bolt, and pull out the free thread to secure the box. First of all, the lower point of the side of the box on which the hinges are located is attached. Next, you need to check the installation level and first fix the top, and then the middle of the hinge side. This is followed by the hinge of the canvas, checking the correct installation and fastening the counterpart of the box with three anchors.

If you use auxiliary plates for fastening, weld them to the frame profile from the outside before installing the door in the opening. The length of the welding seam should not be less than 6 cm. Drill the wall through the holes in the plates and fix the box with anchors in the same order.

When using to attach reinforcing bars, drive them through the plate and into the hole in the wall using a sledgehammer or hammer in chiseling mode. Embed the rod to such a depth that it protrudes 1–2 mm above the plate, then scald the seam in a circle. The procedure for fixing the box in the opening remains the same.

Door leaf hinge and adjustment

There are several types of door hinges and hinges, but in general they can be classified as hidden or open. Hidden hinges are fixed to the door leaf frame and frame profile with massive bolts. For hinging, such a door should be set at the desired height and held while the assistant fixes.

It is a little more difficult to hang doors with open hinges. Here it will be necessary not only to raise the canvas to the desired level, but also to provide a little mobility. If the hinges have a non-removable pin, install a ball or thrust bearing on it and add Litol-24 grease. Raising the door and aligning the holes in the barrels with the pins, lower it, closing the hinge.

The hinge pin can be removable, while the hinges on both sides look like rings inserted between each other. To install such a door, it must be precisely aligned so that the holes in all hinges coincide, then grease the pin abundantly and hammer it in from the top side.

After hanging the door leaf, a check is made: the door should not spontaneously move when it is open at 5, 45 and 90 ° in the absence of air flow. If the box is unevenly installed, adjust it by releasing the anchor or applying light side impacts on the welded head of the reinforcing bars. If the box is installed strictly on a level, the movement of the canvas is eliminated by adjusting the awnings. The door should also close quietly without encountering resistance with the lock tongue, for this you need to adjust the striker.

Sealing and sealing

After installing the door, a technological gap remains between the frame and the opening, which must be filled with cement mortar or polyurethane foam. Boxes with a T-profile are filled with cement mortar, while the mortar is laid in the cavity of the T-bar even before the door is installed in the opening.

The mixture is prepared from three parts of sand and one part of M400 cement. After mixing, the solution should remain slightly dry; alabaster is added to it in an amount of 1/4 of the mass of cement. The resulting composition is used to fill the profile space, wait 15–20 minutes until it dries completely and install the door. The technological seam is filled with the same compound from the bottom up from the inside, a wooden plank is temporarily applied from the outside.

The gap is filled with polyurethane foam to the full thickness of the joint and is allowed to dry for 24 hours. Only after the foam has hardened are the spacer wedges removed and the resulting cavities blown out. Excess hard foam is cut with a knife flush with the box, the platbands are installed and the masking tape is removed.