How To Install An Exterior Door In 10 Minutes! - Beginners Guide

Welcome back to the channel guys. This is an exterior door installation video and if you're new to this channel, my name is Josh. This channel is all about building your own house, saving a ton of money, so be sure to subscribe and smash that like button if you find value in this video. Let's get started. The very first thing you need to do before installing your door is check the opening bottom and if the bottom is level, you're good to go, but if it's not level, you need to get shims and shim it up appropriately before installing your door and you're going to use an adhesive when you install your door, which I'm going to show you in a bit, and then the next thing you do is see how plumb your opening is because now's the time to address those issues before you have a door sitting in the opening. The next thing you need to do before buying your door is check your door opening width and height. In this case, we got 38 inches, just a little over 38 inches, and we got looks like 82 inches, so that's going to be enough to accommodate a 36-inch door and a standard height size as well, but something you need to note, if you need to install let's say a 32-inch door, your opening needs to be 34 inches wide. Typically, whatever the door slab is, just add an inch on each side and that's your rough opening measurements. The tools needed to install your door are the following, a level, a drill, so you can drill holes for a screw, you need a number 2 bit on an impact driver or a drill, a tube of liquid nails, shims, a hammer, and some galvanized finish nails. So before you set your door in the opening, I use liquid nails and put a nice thick bead across the bottom here, and make sure your bottom's nice and clean, because if it's not, the liquid nails will not adhere appropriately. So again, be pretty liberal with it, and if you don't have a concrete bottom like you see here, you need to take what's called flashing tape and tape the bottom and over the edge, but I don't have to do that here because I'm sitting on concrete, so major difference there. So again, nice thick bead, and this is the time to put the shims in with the liquid nails if you have to shim at level. So just a word of advice, and again, nice liberal bead. For shipping purposes, every door has a plug in the opening for the doorknob, so be sure to remove that before setting the door in the opening, because once you set it in the opening, you need to be able to open the door, and that way the gravity's going to hold the door from the weight of the door slab in the opening if you're working alone. If you have two people, it's way easier, you just both set it in the opening, someone holds the door while the other one works on the door, but I work solo a lot, so that's how I do it. So I have the luxury of a finish nailer. I'm going to put this on my side, instead of using the galvanized nails and hammer, this is a little quicker for me, so I'm going to put it on my side, and that way I can just take it off my side when I'm ready to tack a nail to set the door. So now I'm going to grab the door and set it in the opening. And this is a solid fiberglass door, so it's actually relatively heavy, so set the bottom in first, and then lift the door into place. Always kick the bottom to make sure we're all the way in. So now what we need to do is make sure the bottom of the door is center of the opening. And it looks like on this side we got about a quarter inch gap, and on this side, let me shut the door and look, it looks like we got about, eh, a little more than a quarter, so I'm just going to tap it over just a little bit, and that looks good, and it slides pretty easy because that liquid nails makes it really greasy-like. Now I'm going to tack a nail on the outside to hold it center, and the other side as well. So now what I'm going to do to secure the door is put a level on the hinge side, make sure we're setting plumb, then I'm going to tack a finish nail on this side to hold it into place. All right, so now we're setting plumb, and we're going to check what the reveal looks like around the door. All right, so if you look at this door, it won't even shut because the needs drove this way. You can tell because the top is touching the frame almost, and down here we got a gap. So that tells me that this door needs pulled this way. So all we got to do is take one of the screws that came with the door and drive it into the side of the jamb, and it'll draw it over. So every door comes with a screw pack, and typically it's going to include three to four screws with two of these foam corner weather stripping pads. So all you got to do, take one of these screws out, and we're going to drive that into this upper hinge to start drawing it over some where it needs adjusted. Go ahead and just snug it up and check the reveal. So now that you got your reveal looking nice, go ahead and take the remaining screws and put one in each hinge. And these drive pretty easy, but you don't want to over tighten them, you just want to snug them up because it can adjust the reveal of that door. Now after you put those screws in, double check to make sure the reveal didn't change too much. And then we're going to shim behind the hinge and then tighten those screws up all the way. Some doors send a fourth screw. This door did not, so I'm just going to use a decking screw. So what the fourth screw does is go behind this weather stripping and it just helps secure this side of the jamb so when you're opening and shutting your door, it's more stable. So what you need to do is take an eighth inch drill bit, pull back that weather stripping, pre-drill a hole right between the two slots. Alright, and then I like to put a little countersink on it because the heads of the decking screws are pretty aggressive. So now just drive that screw in snug. Alright now shut the door and see how that reveal looks now. So it looks like we're a little snug there, so what I'm going to do is take a couple of shims and put in here tight and then tighten up that screw a little more. Just enough to drive this gap just open a little bit more. Alright let's check the reveal one final time. Okay it shuts very nice. Reveal looks nice and even. I like it. And across the top it looks good. And sometimes it's okay to have more of a crack on this side than this side because over time the weight will pull this door down some. So it will actually straighten that reveal out up top just FYI. So I got a shim in this top corner and in the middle and at the very bottom. And now what I like to do is take trim nails and go from inside of the jamb here and put a trim nail in each shim. So go in from here in and from here in. So since I got my handy dandy little finish nailer I can just take a little shortcut here try to go behind the weather stripping and then boom. We got a nice little trim nail holding that shim. It's going to hold that jamb securely as well. And I already put a nail here. And then what I like to do is go on the outside and then take your finish nailer or finish nails and just tack this trim into place. And this gun just makes it way too easy. Then that's what it's going to look like from the outside. Looks very good. And just go ahead and put some more nails in. This just helps secure this brick mold and yet gives it a nice secure finish. So a good tool to use to cut these shims when you have a pretty thick shim is to use these oscillating tools. And they just run right up against the edge of the shim and it will cut it right off. Now if that was only one shim I would have just broke it off and took a utility knife cut behind it first and just snapped it. But when you have a shim that's relatively thick, this is definitely the way to go. Whenever I have a door on the outside of a house that does not have a cover over it, it gets a lot of element exposure. So I like to take what's called flashing tape. This stuff is kind of like a rubberized tape that's used for going around windows and doors. And that way when rain hits the side of the house and comes down and hits that brick mold it doesn't get right behind the door. So I'm going to put a strip of this above the door. And you can put it on the sides of the door too. But the main thing is above because once that rain hits above it, it doesn't go behind the door. And on the sides it's also going to go right down the side anyways. And as you can see here, I've got house wrap behind the door which is going to help add a little layer of protection. So I'm just going to put a nice strip above the top of it and then just take Tyvek tape and go down the sides to make it more air proof. And that will also keep the water out too just in case something goes against the brick mold. So let's get that done. So that's what you want on top of your door. If water hits here, it comes here and then over the door instead of behind the door. So I like to do that. Not everybody does this but I do. And if water drains down these sides, it just goes straight down so that way it won't get behind the door. But I still take Tyvek tape and put it behind here. And that's what the door looks like from the outside. And this jam is PVC. The door is fiberglass and the brick mold is PVC as well. So this door should never rot. And that's one thing I've spent a little more money on but you don't have to worry about it which is a huge plus. So I need to make sure I get these holes covered up so that way water can't get in here. So I need to get a doorknob on there ASAP. These little foam pads that came with the door are for the weather stripping. If you see light coming in from a crack, you can just stuff this behind the weather stripping. It's going to help push it out some so that way it makes it perfectly air tight. And with that being said, you want to make sure you insulate around the door with either spray foam or just tuck regular fiberglass insulation into that crack. Spray foam is better but regular insulation works as well. But that's all I've got in this video for you. I want to say thanks a lot for watching and again my name is Josh, this channel is all about building your own house and saving a ton of money so be sure to subscribe if you're new to that and I will see you in the next video. Peace!