How a Steel Door Is Installed

Our doors arrive pre-hung: the slab is already on its hinges in a welded steel frame, with the hardware prepped. The frame is anchored to the structure through steel brackets or anchor tabs on the back of the jambs. The sequence runs like this:

1. Dry fit. The unit is stood in the opening and checked against the rough opening before anything is fixed.
2. Sill first. The threshold is bedded in sealant on the prepared sill and set level. Everything above is referenced from here.
3. Hinge jamb plumb. The hinge side is shimmed plumb in both directions and anchored at the hinge locations, because that is where the load is.
4. Strike jamb to the slab. The lock side is set to give an even reveal around the door, then anchored. The reveal is the gap between slab and frame, and it should be the same all the way round.
5. Head and remaining anchors. The head is checked for level and the rest of the brackets are fixed, with shims behind every anchor so tightening does not pull the frame out of true.
6. Operate and adjust. The door is swung, latched and locked through every point before the crew moves on to sealing.

Anchor type depends on what the frame is going into. Wood framing takes structural screws through the brackets into the king studs. Concrete and block take masonry anchors. Steel structure is through-bolted or welded. In every case the fastener goes through a shim, never into an air gap.

Shims do two jobs. They hold the frame in the right position while it is anchored, and they transfer the load from the frame to the structure so the fastener is not doing it alone. A correctly shimmed frame has solid packing behind every anchor point and at the strike, with nothing bearing on the sealant or the trim.

• Use hard shims. Composite or hardwood, not soft pine that crushes over time.
• Shim in pairs, opposing tapers, so the bearing surface is flat.
• Check plumb again after every anchor is tightened. Steel frames are stiff, but a hard-driven anchor can still pull a jamb.
• The test is the reveal. An even gap around the slab and a door that stays wherever you leave it, neither swinging open nor drifting shut, means the frame is right.

The threshold is where most water problems start. It needs a solid, level base, a sill pan or membrane that turns up at the ends, and a continuous bed of exterior sealant under the threshold before it is set. The sweep on the bottom of the door should just touch the threshold along its full length. Too tight and the door drags, too loose and you get daylight and drafts. On tile or stone floors we confirm the finished floor height before the threshold goes down, because a threshold set to a subfloor and then tiled up to is the classic cause of a door that will not clear the floor.

Water is managed in layers, and each layer has to lap over the one below it so anything that gets past the outer layer is still directed outside.

1. Sill pan or membrane across the sill and turned up the jambs.
2. Jamb flashing lapped over the sill pan and tied into the house wrap.
3. Head flashing lapped over the jamb flashing, with a drip edge above the frame so water sheds clear of it.
4. Backer rod and exterior sealant in the gap between frame and cladding on the outside. Never foam alone, and never a sealant joint with no backer rod behind it.
5. Low-expansion foam or insulation in the shim gap from the interior side, then interior sealant or trim.

Central Texas storms arrive sideways. A detail that works in a gentle rain can fail under wind-driven water, which is why we flash as if the door were on a coast.

A pair is set the same way as a single, with one difference: the two slabs have to meet in the middle with an even gap along their full height, and the inactive leaf has to be locked solid before the active leaf can latch into it. The frame is set to the inactive leaf first, its flush bolts are engaged, and then the active leaf is checked against it. Any twist in the frame shows up as a gap that is wider at the top than the bottom where the doors meet. That is corrected at the frame, not by adjusting hinges. More on the product itself on the french doors page.

Honest answer: a single steel entry unit with insulated glass runs several hundred pounds, a patio wall runs into the thousands, and once the frame is anchored you do not get a second try. A timber door can be adjusted after the fact. A welded steel frame cannot. That is why we install everything we sell and why installation is already in the price. If you are a contractor with the crew and equipment to set it, we will supply the drawings and talk you through the anchoring. For a homeowner, it is not a weekend job.