Rusted steel doors

[gtblum]

Yesterday, I did a house built in 87 with six Stanley steel entry doors all in various stages of deterioration from rust. The worst of the bunch had rusted through, and the skin had separated. I Think I covered all of the obvious reasons this might happen but, came up empty. Anybody have any info or experienced this? Bad batch of cheap steel?

[Tom Raymond]

What color were they? It is very common for people to think the grey primer coat is a permanent finish, it isn't. Beyond that Stanley is a very cheap door; the steel is thin, the door edges are wood, and the insulation is polystyrene. Twenty two years is really a pretty good service life for one of these, I'll bet they look about the same as the last '87 Chevette you saw.

Tom

[gtblum]

What color were they? It is very common for people to think the grey primer coat is a permanent finish, it isn't. Beyond that Stanley is a very cheap door; the steel is thin, the door edges are wood, and the insulation is polystyrene. Twenty two years is really a pretty good service life for one of these, I'll bet they look about the same as the last '87 Chevette you saw.

Tom

All painted and bleeding like the wheel wells on a Chevy truck.

Thanks Tom.

[AHI in AR]

Did they have glass in them? Around here, the doors arrive at the door shop as blanks. If glass is desired, the door shop cuts the hole out and inserts the glass. If they don't get the sealant right, water seeps into the interior of the door (by leaking between the plastic frame and the glass) and they rust from the inside out.

[gtblum]

Did they have glass in them? Around here, the doors arrive at the door shop as blanks. If glass is desired, the door shop cuts the hole out and inserts the glass. If they don't get the sealant right, water seeps into the interior of the door (by leaking between the plastic frame and the glass) and they rust from the inside out.

Yup, but they all looked like typical off the big box shelf doors to me.

I never knew the manufacturers farmed that out. I must have missed that episode of How it's made. " Next the WORKERS apply sealant to the windows of some of the doors."

Seriously, that's probably a good guess Kevin. Silicone based sealants don't last a really long time even when properly applied do they?

[Tom Raymond]

OK, here's how steel and fiberglass doors are made:

One company stamps out door skins and sometimes assembles them into slabs. Another company assembles the door lites (usually ODL, that's why they all look the same), while yet more companies fabricate the jambs, sills, weatherstripping, etc. A regional door shop chooses components from various vendors and assembles complete doors from those. Small shops cut their own openings to keep inventories down, big shops stock slabs precut to speed production.

There are exceptions, notably Provia (Precision Door) that has a massive door shop utilizing many different manufacturer's slabs but they make all their own glass, and ThermaTru who manufactures all of their own components and licenses big distributors (like Reeb) to assemble their doors.

Now you know,

Tom

[AHI in AR]

Did they have glass in them? Around here, the doors arrive at the door shop as blanks. If glass is desired, the door shop cuts the hole out and inserts the glass. If they don't get the sealant right, water seeps into the interior of the door (by leaking between the plastic frame and the glass) and they rust from the inside out.

Yup, but they all looked like typical off the big box shelf doors to me.

I never knew the manufacturers farmed that out. I must have missed that episode of How it's made. " Next the WORKERS apply sealant to the windows of some of the doors."

Seriously, that's probably a good guess Kevin. Silicone based sealants don't last a really long time even when properly applied do they?

Actually, they don't usually use silicone; it's not paintable and since some of the goo squeezes out most shops use a paintable material. I don't know what it is. It's not latex, it's not urethane, but it IS sticky as all hell and it remains that way. It's unbelievably hard to remove the excess when they get sloppy, although it makes a dandy fly trap when they get really sloppy. Tom's right about how small shops work, but even if Stanley doors from a big box were used, they still had to have the goo squeezed into place by a human being...likely making minimum wage and possibly nursing a hangover or a grudge against the boss. If the damage is primarily near the bottom of the door, I'd suspect leakage or poor paint work allowing splash to do a number on them.