General, Technology and Society

Home Improvement Conundrum

5 Comments

Posting is light because we’re doing things around the house this weekend. We just replaced the bedroom door (to the outside), and I’m replacing the threshold as well. The thing has an aluminum channel into which a rubber seal fits, after mounting it with screws. But you can’t put the screws in with the seal in place, and once it’s mounted, you can’t slide the seal into the channel (as the instructions say) because the ends are butted up against the door frame. All I can think to do is to shorten it so I have some clearance for inserting the seal, but then the ends won’t have channel, just seal.

[Update a while later]

OK, I figured it out. If I pinch the bottom flat part and bend it upward, I can squeeze the sides into the flange. I still don’t understand why the instructions say to “slide” it in, though.

5 thoughts on “Home Improvement Conundrum”

  1. TodaysHomeOwner video: How to replace an entry door threshold

    After you screw down the aluminum plate, you work the rubber seal vertically down into the channel instead of sliding it in from the side. Once in, it should be locked in place and can only come out sideways.

    Of course I’m assuming your threshold wasn’t designed by NASA, ULA, or some other aerospace contractor, in which case you might have to disassemble your house and put the threshold in before you mount the wall studs to the foundation.

    1. I’ve been looking at those videos. The problem is that my seal isn’t like the ones they show; it has an oval in it that prevents it from being compressed into the grooves. I’m thinking I may have to slice the bottom of that in order to give it enough play to press it in. But the instructions say to “slide” it in, which can be easily done when it’s not butted against a door frame, but impossible to do when it is.

      1. How expensive was this threshold? Too expensive to be worth going back and seeing if you can find another one that’s designed like the video instead of what you got?

  2. I still don’t understand why the instructions say to “slide” it in, though.

    Almost assuredly because the English major who wrote the instructions has never tried to install one.

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