Protecting Doors and Thresholds

[worldwidewebs]

We've got the windows and doors being installed over the next few days - lovely Internorm alu clad timber... What's considered the best way to protect the doors and especially the door thresholds from ruin whilst trades are on site, aside from the threat of amputation? 

[Barney12]

I don't believe their is a simple robust solution. 

 

Corex sheet is relatively strong and you can cut it to form custom covers to protect everything as best as possible, 

Try to avoid adhesive tapes directly onto the outer surfaces of the timber of powder coat. They will damage the surface over time. 

 

Probably the the biggest thing is trying to keep things clean. Grit and dirt is incredibly abrasive and will ruin your finished surfaces. Clean thresholds etc daily if at all possible. 

 

Oh oh and eyes like a hawk to stop trades trashing things. 

[joe90]

I always used to fit a piece of thick carpet over thresholds whilst working on site, seemed to work well, ( can't shut the door tho!)

[Mikey_1980]

We put some thick carpet down upside down so the soft pile was facing down.  Damage will and does happen, we had some scratches to our powdercoat and a dent the size of a 50p appear in one of our alu frames when the scaffolding came down, but Magic Man is absolutley brilliant at making them disappear and look like new. 

[JamieM]

I asked them (my internorm installers) to hold off putting 2 of the doors on and they will put them on when they are returning to put the cladding on for the corner windows.

[worldwidewebs]

So, apart from 'Magic Man' there's nothing 'magic'   When I'm on-site I know I can patrol it, it's more about when I'm not there. 

 

 

[Declan52]

Only have one door that you open up. Keep the rest locked no matter how many times the plumber asks.

Foam on the handle so when it swings open and hits a wall it won't get damaged. 

 

[TerryE]

+1 on Declan's suggestion. We also made up a double ramp covered in an old piece of carpet and 2 U sections lined with Hassian as uprights and an L section insert for the door head.  If we had workers carrying stuff in and out, then these were used to cover the frame and act as protection against anything banging into our Internorm frame.

 

Also have a lockable shed or container onsite for storage, and set a policy that the house isn't to be used as storeroom for outside tools and equipment.  So only stuff that needs to go in and out goes in and out.

[Nickfromwales]

3 hours ago, Declan52 said:

Keep the rest locked no matter how many times the plumber asks.

 

 

Silly you, you clearly meant to say "electrician" . 

[Declan52]

In all my years on site plumbers where def the worst. Mine had the van reversed up to the patio doors so you could step straight out of the van into the house. Don't think they liked that brown mucky stuff on there trainers.

[Barney12]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

In all my years on site plumbers where def the worst. Mine had the van reversed up to the patio doors so you could step straight out of the van into the house. Don't think they liked that brown mucky stuff on there trainers.

 

Diva's the lot of em!  

[joe90]

8 hours ago, Declan52 said:

In all my years on site plumbers where def the worst. Mine had the van reversed up to the patio doors so you could step straight out of the van into the house. Don't think they liked that brown mucky stuff on there trainers.

Perhaps they were thinking of you!!!, not getting mud trampled indoors if they can access their van directly????

[jack]

13 hours ago, TerryE said:

If we had workers carrying stuff in and out, then these were used to cover the frame and act as protection against anything banging into our Internorm frame.

 

That still leaves the problem of getting them to actually use it when you aren't watching!

 

We built a nice, easy to install frame that I put in place each morning to protect the main door when I arrived on site.  Worked a treat, until one afternoon when I was off somewhere, and someone decided that it would be easier to remove the frame to get a big bit of heavy machinery through the door rather than spend a few minutes breaking the machine down so it would fit through with the frame in place.  Bingo - nice big gouge in the powder coating on the door frame.  

 

I suppose I should be thankful they didn't deny it when I saw it on the way back in.

[ryder72]

Our Internorm windows go in next week. We are going to keep all windows locked. Front door, also from Internorm has been put back till the end of the build at extra cost but we couldnt risk someone damaging an expensive front door.

 

We will be using correx on both sides to protect the glazing.

[TerryE]

We have a stone skin and our Internorm doors and windows close the gap between the skin and the frame by sitting some 45mm forward of the timber frame's Panelvent outer skin.  We had the dual challenges of how to maintain a slip layer between the outer stone reveals and the frames, and how to protect the frames over the couple of months when the frame was being erected.  Our solution was simple and proved to work brilliantly.  We simply covered all of the doors and windows with heavy duty polythene and stabled this back to the boxing frames which help the doors and windows at this 45mm stand-off.  In the case of the front door, we then cut a hole in this about 100mm smaller on the three sides and wrapped the polythene around and into the frame; we then covered the front door with polythene.  (Ditto the back door so we could use it when needed).

 

The outer surface of the polythene got absolutely filthy.

 

When the stonework was all done, I carefully cut around each frame where the stone pointing met the frame and removed the sheet leaving a clean and unmarked window/door and a polythene slip layer between each frame and the mortar.

[worldwidewebs]

3 hours ago, TerryE said:

In the case of the front door, we then cut a hole in this about 100mm smaller on the three sides and wrapped the polythene around and into the frame; we then covered the front door with polythene.  (Ditto the back door so we could use it when needed).

 

I take it that you could still close the doors ok with the polythene 'trapped' between door and frame?

[TerryE]

@worldwidewebs, Yup Heavy duty polythene is only 250 micron. 

[worldwidewebs]

I've got some over many of the larger windows at the moment and I think I'm going to employ your suggestion (as well as others). Cheers  

[TerryE]

With the best will in the world, even the good builders are a load of messy buggers

[worldwidewebs]

I think my CDO is going to be tested to the limit