Recently had a timber front door fitted by a local carpenter. It was a bit of a faff and required quite a few additional visits to tweak, but pretty pleased with the end result.

Well, I was, until this afternoon when the heavens opened and rainwater started pouring in through the gap between the bottom of the door and the frame. It’s not like the outside was flooded and the bottom of the door was below the waterline – the rain was just hitting the door and then coming inside. I had to put towels along the bottom of the door to stop the hall flooding.

I called the carpenter and said I wasn’t best pleased that my new (and not at all cheap) front door wasn’t watertight. He said there’s nothing wrong with the door (he helpfully explained that there has to be a gap between the door and the frame for it to open) and that it must be the frame. I said that the previous door had been sitting in the same frame for over a decade and yet it never leaked. He said that door was actually a bit too tight in the frame, and that the new door was fitted properly and within regulations. He insisted it must have been because the (admittedly very strong) wind was driving the (admittedly very heavy) rain in at a certain angle that caused it to flow under the door. That can’t be right, can it?

He’s going to come next week to have a look at doing something to the frame to stop water ingress, but I just wanted to see if I’m being unreasonable in expecting this not to happen?

I’ve only paid for half of the door at this point so want to know if I’m justified in expecting this to be sorted before I pay the rest.

Any advice?

Does it have a threshold sill? If not, it really should have one, if it does then check it’s fitted correctly.

Not that I know much about these things, but all the doors I’ve seen have a piece along the bottom that has a lip that sits lower than the sill that the door sits directly above, so preventing water from running down the door, or being blown under.
Something like this:
http://www.sealmaster.co.uk/weather_seals/smartseal-technology/smartseal-technology-pages/smartseal-technology.php

whilst the UK was experiencing loads of wind and rain my mum phoned me last week to tell me that the shed i built eight years ago was leaking (the shed being to all intents and purposes a live-in out house….. a wet patch had appeared on the ceiling. the roof had an angle of 15° and the corrugated sheets had an overlap of 150mm….

a mate, also a chippy looked at it as he was working on the house next door… said that he too had received lots of phone calls about the same thing.

yeah, the sill on the door should prevent it, but water as they say in Schermany “water has a thin head”….

It does have a weatherboard like the image above, but pretty sure it doesn’t have any of that other stuff – it’s just a flat wooden frame. Is that not right then? It’s just the previous door never leaked – I can’t see why the new one should?

Our back door faces west and gets blasted by driving rain so it’s not unusual to come down and find a puddle. It has an elaborate alloy threshold with seals but water gets past that somehow. I really need to attach a weatherboard to the door but I don’t want to spoil the integrity of the steel surface plate. Could glue it on, I guess.

My front door faces south – during all that mega rain we had over xmas- it was passing through my doors and windows like thye werent there….

Thats a upvc “weatherseal” door with unblocked drains ..

And timber double glazing.

The rain was so hard that it was driving in and not being alowed to drain out so building up till it passed the seals …. Every window on front of house was the same.

My parents (60year old) front door used to have a half inch gap under it – but with weather strip on the front face …. Never got water coming in.- just whorrin windy

Im a joiner. Your carpenter is a idiot who doesn’t know what he is doing. There should be either a water bar (an inch by quarter inch galvanised metal bar) grooved a half inch into the threshold so that half an inch protrudes, which is then rebated into the bottom of the door. This stops water being blown through the gap. There will then be drip moulding (a bit like the picture above) along the bottom of the door to stop water running down the door, clinging to the bottom of the door and flowing in. All doors across the planet are made like this.

At best he’ll have to bodge it to fix it…or he’ll have to take remedial action to create a workable solution as I like to put it.

This shows the weatherboard at the bottom of the door and the base of the frame:

This is the underside of the weatherboard (the coir is the doormat, rather than anything attached to the door):

So that isn’t right then?

Err. no.

The step appears nearly flat, so water is being blown in under your door. The waterbar is in the wrong place and too low – all it’s doing is building up a nice reservoir to make sure there’s enough water to annoy you. . Can you reprofile the step or raise and bring forward the waterbar?

I would expect to get water blown under than in a strong wind. But to be fair to the joiner, it’s the threshold that’s the problem, and if you only asked for a new door, he has a point. It might just have been exceptional weather that made it leak now when it hasn’t before.

The step appears nearly flat, so water is being blown in under your door.

But to be fair to the joiner, it’s the threshold that’s the problem, and if you only asked for a new door, he has a point.

That’s true – we did only ask for a front door. So he hasn’t done anything to the frame or step – that’s been left as it was. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the threshold was all wrong – the people who owned the house before us had bodged lots of things. But shouldn’t he have said something if it wasn’t going to work as it was?

The waterbar is in the wrong place and too low – all it’s doing is building up a nice reservoir to make sure there’s enough water to annoy you.

So the weatherboard shouldn’t be flush with the bottom of the door?

Am I therefore right in thinking that he hasn’t done the job properly, or is it just the fact that he couldn’t do anything without also doing stuff to the step and/or frame? If the former, what should he have done differently? And more importantly, what can he now do to fix it?

http://www.ldwf.co.uk/store/draught-excluder-weatherseals/weather-bars-door-surrounds/exitex-threshex
These work quite well for a quick fix
.but ideally id fit a new h/w frame

but ideally id fit a new h/w frame

That is very much the plan, but I was intending to wait until the summer, when the weather is better and I have a bit more money. When I do come round to doing that, how should I expect them to be designing the new frame to stop water from coming in? Should it have one of those weather seal things built into the threshold?

Yes, otherwise it won’t do anything.

http://www.roncurrie.co.uk/Doorframesext.htm

7th one down is the most common