Doors, Locks & Carpentry in Cary, NC

The threshold nobody has ever touched

The most common exterior door complaint in Cary is a draught you can feel at ankle height, and the most common assumption is that the door has had it.

Before anything else, look at the sill.

Most exterior thresholds are adjustable. The insert running along the sill — usually a strip of a different material from the rest — commonly sits on a row of screws set into it at intervals. Turning those screws raises or lowers the insert, which changes how firmly it presses against the bottom of the closed door.

It is set at installation, and in a great many houses nobody has touched it since. Meanwhile the door has settled, the weatherstrip has compressed and the house has moved slightly.

Raising the threshold back into contact takes a screwdriver and five minutes. It is genuinely the first thing to check and it solves a large proportion of draughty doors on its own.

The limit is that it can only be raised so far before the door starts dragging on it. If it is already at that limit and the gap remains, the door bottom or the sweep is the next thing to look at.

Weatherstripping is a consumable

The other half of an exterior door seal, and it is worth understanding that it wears out.

The compressible strip round the frame relies on springing back after every closing. Over fifteen or twenty years — sooner where a door sees full sun — the material takes a permanent set. It no longer recovers, so it seals only where the door presses hardest, which is usually near the latch, and not at all at the hinge side or the top.

The paper test. Close the door on a sheet of paper and pull it out. Where the seal is working, the paper grips. Where it does not, the paper slides out freely. Do it at six or eight points round the frame and you get a map of where the seal has failed.

Replacing weatherstripping is straightforward, inexpensive and among the most cost-effective things you can do to a house of this age.

The rest of an exterior door

The sweep. The strip on the bottom edge of the door itself. It wears from dragging and it is easily replaced.

Alignment. A door that has dropped will not press evenly against the seal at the top. Frequently the underlying issue is the top hinge, whose screws have lost grip in the jamb — refixing that hinge with longer screws reaching the framing behind lifts the door back to square, and the seal starts working again.

The strike and deadbolt. Worth a mention here because it is a security point rather than a draught one. Builder deadbolt strikes are commonly fixed with short screws that stop in the jamb rather than reaching the framing behind it, which means the assembly can be defeated by splitting the jamb. Fitting longer screws is a ten-minute change and it is the most useful security upgrade available on most houses.

Approval, because this is Cary

Cary is one of the most covenanted towns in the state, and door work is one of the places that matters.

Frequently needs approval: adding or changing a storm door, changing the front door colour, changing the door style, anything else that alters the appearance of the front elevation.

Does not: interior doors, locks, weatherstripping, thresholds, trim and anything else you cannot see from the street.

It is one email to the management company and it is far easier before the work than after. Committees often meet on a schedule rather than reviewing as things arrive, so it is worth starting early.

Interior doors

The established Cary neighbourhoods have doors old enough to have dropped and been painted several times. The newer west Cary houses have mostly hollow-core interior doors of a more recent generation.

Both bind in summer and behave in winter, and in both cases the answer is usually not to plane them. Timber swells with humidity and shrinks again — take material off in August and by January you have a gap and a door that no longer sits against its stop. The clearance gets recovered by fixing the hinges, adjusting the strike and dealing with paint build-up, and material only comes off where the frame has genuinely moved for good.

Trim, baseboards and small carpentry

Trim and casing. Damaged sections, mitres that have opened, casing that has been knocked. In the newer neighbourhoods the profiles are generally still available. In the older core they may not be, and a section gets built up or milled to match rather than swapped for the nearest stock profile.

Baseboards. Skirting that has come away from the wall, gaps that have opened at the floor after a flooring change, and damaged lengths.

Small carpentry. Shelving in an alcove, boxing in a pipe run, a stair spindle, a window seat. If you are not sure whether something qualifies, send a photo and we will tell you.

Getting a price

For an exterior door, photograph it closed from inside with a light behind it if you can — that shows exactly where the gaps are. Photograph the threshold and the sill too. Tell us whether the draught is at the bottom, the sides or the top.

Cary is about fifteen minutes from our base in Apex.