More recently installation interior doors doing it yourself was quite a difficult task and required serious experience and skills from a person. Now everything has become much easier, having a good tool and knowing the procedure for installing interior doors, any House master able to finish work in a day. Next, we will show you step by step how to properly install an interior door in two ways.
Options for interior doors.
Before installing an interior door, you must first select it. When choosing, there are 2 main criteria - the size of the structure and the material from which the doors and the frame to them are actually made.
Material selection
It is not so important to install the interior door in wooden house or in a room in a city high-rise building, the design must not only be beautiful, but also reliable, and this primarily depends on the material.
Fiberboard is perhaps the most common option. The design is a hollow box closed on both sides with thin fiberboard sheets and based on a frame made of wooden blocks.
There is no need to rush to install such a door; it is, of course, light and cheap, and it may look quite decent, but the reliability is not all right; such a structure can even be broken with your fist, plus there is a high probability that in a couple of years it will begin to delaminate.
MDF is golden mean between cheap fiberboard and good wooden structure. The array is dense, durable, and most importantly completely environmentally friendly. Self-installation Interior laminated MDF panels at home are an excellent solution if you don’t have the funds for installers, but want a beautiful door.
The MDF canvas must be laminated with high quality, then it will not be visually different from wood.
Natural wood - traditionally it is believed that installation wooden doors this is the most the best option, but this is wrong, here you need to look at the quality and manufacturer. Believe me, sometimes it is better to install interior doors from good MDF laminate, rather than take a damp pine tree, which will fail in six months.
At the time of buying wooden canvases the quality of the forest must be carefully assessed.
If you decide to change interior doors and you have a high-quality wooden panel, then you don’t have to touch it, you can only replace the panel. In this case, the technology for installing interior doors will be much simpler.
GOSTs, tolerances and unclear issues
The size of the doorway for installation is perhaps the most important of the initial parameters. To this day, all such designs are made according to Soviet GOST standards; by the way, the Chinese also focus on these dimensions, but in Europe, despite the supposedly uniform standard, many countries do it their own way.
So if our minimum blade width starts from 600 mm and then in increments of 100 mm, it reaches 900 mm, then France produces blades starting from 690 mm, but the graduation also occurs in increments of 100 mm.
Germany, Spain and Italy, as well as all countries of the former socialist camp, in this regard are guided by almost the same standards as our manufacturers.
Interior doors have clear standards that need to be checked before installing an interior door yourself.
As for tolerances, a gap of 3 mm is left on the sides and top between the box and the canvas itself. According to the rules, there must be at least 20 mm between the floor and the canvas. This gap is needed for normal ventilation in the apartment.
Along the perimeter of the frame in block buildings, you can leave any gap, up to several millimeters, the main thing is that the frame is level, but if we cut doors in a wooden house with our own hands, then we set the tolerance to at least 15 mm, it is needed in case the house fails shrinkage
When choosing an interior door, installation is the last stage, before this you need to read the description in detail, because the price can be indicated depending on the configuration, there are 3 options:
- Only the door leaf is sold - this option is good if the door is planned to be installed on an old frame;
- The canvas is sold together with the box, but the box comes disassembled; here, even before installing the interior door with your own hands, you will have to cut it to size and assemble the box, which in most cases is even good;
- Fully assembled blocks with a finished frame, canvas, locks and hinges are installed only if preparation of the opening is not required. There it is enough to cut the racks to the height and install the interior door yourself.
Do not forget that it is not enough just to install interior doors in the opening, complete installation The design of an interior door involves the arrangement of platbands, extensions (if necessary) and fittings, so it is also advisable to take them right away, otherwise the shade may not be suitable later.
Installation of interior doors will not be complete without platbands and fittings.
There is one more important question– when to install interior doors during renovation? So, the instructions for installing interior doors say that such structures are installed at the very end of the renovation, after finishing the walls, floor and ceiling, but before installing the floor skirting boards.
Two mounting options
We’ve sorted out the dimensional tolerances and other pressing issues, now it’s time to find out how to install an interior door yourself. But to assemble and install the structure, we need a tool.
A few words about the instrument and accompanying material
To install interior doors we need:
- A hacksaw for wood, but ideally it is better to have a miter saw, it does not leave chips, plus you can set the exact cutting angle;
- To create openings between the frame and the wall, wedges are required;
- Hammer;
- Chisel;
- Screwdriver;
- Electric drill;
- Plumb;
- Level;
- Pencil;
- Roulette.
Install an interior door yourself without good tool unreal.
Important! Safety regulations strictly prohibit cutting wood with a grinder. If you value your health, don't even think about it.
Auxiliary materials for installing doors will be needed:
- Polyurethane foam;
- Masking tape;
- Self-tapping screws different sizes and sections;
- Anchor bolts with dowels.
Preparing the opening
Ideally, before installing an interior door, the edges of the walls should be, if not plastered, then at least leveled with cement-sand mortar.
But in real conditions, preparing a doorway for installing an interior door ends with adjusting the dimensions to fit the frame, because then the unflattering cracks will foam and be covered with platbands, so there is no point in creating special beauty.
It is advisable to level the doorway before installing the frame.
There is one important point here: often installing a double interior door requires widening the opening, so when it comes to partitions, they can be “redrawn” as you see fit. But if the wall is load-bearing, then a slight expansion of no more than 5–7 cm is allowed, otherwise there may be problems both with the wall and with the law.
Box assembly
You can assemble a door frame with your own hands in two ways - by cutting the corners of the top strip at 45º and joining the strips at right angles. Both methods are good, but it is believed that an angular connection at 45º will look more elegant.
Really high-quality corner trimming can only be done with the help of a trimmer; if they assure you that an ordinary plastic miter box and a hacksaw for wood will do for this, don’t believe it, it can ruin the boxes that were made.
The vertical posts are cut first at 45º, after which you can proceed to trimming the upper horizontal strip. In order to set aside 3 mm, it is convenient to use a piece of fiberboard as a template.
We measure the gap relative to the top bar with a template.
- You place the top strip cut on one side and move it along the cut of the template;
- Then go to the opposite side of the door and, using the same template, mark the cutting line.
Trimming the top strip at an angle using a trim saw.
Now we lay out the finished, trimmed frame strips on the floor and once again control the dimensions.
This is what a door frame looks like cut at an angle.
- The box is fastened in stages. First you need to tightly connect the planks together the way they should be;
- When screwing in the screws, the frame slats may crack; to prevent this from happening, before assembling, we need to drill channels for the screws. This is done with a 2.5 mm drill (our self-tapping screw is 3.5 mm);
Preparing to fasten the box.
- Now you can screw the screws into the ends of the box on both sides, and there should be 2 screws on each side of the corner.
There is a small nuance here; the vertical strip of the box to which the hinges will be attached does not need to be fully tightened on both sides; we will still have to remove it.
Fixation of the box with cutting at an angle.
If you don’t have a miter saw in your arsenal, then it is better to attach the frame slats at a right angle. It may not be as aesthetically pleasing, but the step-by-step instructions will be somewhat simpler.
We start by trying on the top cross member; we will embed it between the two side posts. Some craftsmen mount the crossbar above the side posts, there is not much difference, here it’s more convenient for everyone.
Along the perimeter of the frame we have a side, into which the door leaf rests when closing. To embed the top cross member on the side posts we need to remove this side. To do this, we attach the upper cross member to the rack, mark it, cut the side with a hacksaw, and clean the place for installation.
Now all we have to do is insert the top bar between the two side posts, drill holes for a pair of screws and secure the inserted bar with self-tapping screws.
If you decide to place the strip on top of the racks, then you will need to trim the inner edge to top bar, then drill and drive the screws from above, as shown in the diagram below.
Do-it-yourself installation of a plank placed on top.
Installing hinges and handles
For a door, installing hinges is one of the most important stages. In principle, you can embed a lock and attach hinges after installing the frame in the opening, but if you are installing the doors yourself (without help), then it is better to do this right away.
Loops can be overhead or hidden. It’s easier to work with overhead butterfly hinges, since you don’t need to cut anything in the door leaf and frame, so we’ll start with them.
A little advice: if the door should open on the right side, then you insert the hinges on the right; accordingly, for left-side opening, the hinges need to be attached to the left post.
Installation of hinges begins with markings on the canvas itself. According to the rules, the distance from the top or bottom point of the canvas to the loop should be 200 - 250 mm. You can measure with a tape measure, as in the photo below, but if you don’t have a tape measure at hand, then use the loops themselves, there standard size equal to 100 mm.
We make markings for installing hinges.
Don’t get confused: the small (inner) part of the butterfly hinge is attached to the door leaf, and the large part is attached to the frame post. Before screwing in the screws, you need to drill holes under them, only after that the screws are driven in.
All hinges have recesses for the screw heads, so make sure that these recesses “look” up. If the hinges are installed the other way around, the heads of the screws will remain above the hinges, and therefore the doors will not close completely.
Drill holes for butterfly hinges.
We have the box almost assembled, now we put it on the floor and put the door leaf inside. As you remember, we should have 3 mm around the perimeter of the canvas, so we immediately insert as many homemade fiberboard templates (3 mm thick) between the box and the canvas as possible.
One part of the loop is screwed to the canvas; to screw the second part of the loop to the box, we make a mark on the box. Next, unscrew the self-tapping screws securing the supporting vertical bar and screw the mating part of the hinges to it. Then we return the box strip to its place and fix it completely.
Screw the loops to vertical rack boxes
Installing hidden hinges yourself is not much more complicated than the method described above. The difference is that you need to cut grooves for the hinges in the door leaf and frame. This is done using a mallet, chisel and knife.
Cutting grooves for mounting hidden hinges
As for the installation door handle, then you can read about this in detail and also watch the video in this article. And don’t forget that the hinges must be lubricated; you can learn about lubrication rules.
There are different methods for installing interior doors in a wall opening, it all depends on the specific conditions. Next we will look at the simplest and most popular options.
Method number 1. Classic
At the moment, the frame posts should be cut to the height of the opening, the hinges and lock should be cut in, the door should be closed, and 3 mm thick templates should be inserted between the door leaf and the frame.
When door block inserted into the opening, first of all, wooden or plastic wedges are driven around the perimeter; they will hold the block until it is finally secured.
Classic scheme for installing interior doors using wedges.
Fixing is a rather important moment; here we position the block vertically and horizontally. Keep in mind: the wall is not always strictly vertical, so check the box with a plumb line.
It is better to check the vertical by plumb.
To prevent the door block from falling out from a strong push, it must be firmly secured with anchor bolts or at least long self-tapping screws. We recommend using anchor bolts thickness 6 – 8 mm.
The principle is simple:
- Drill a through hole in the box and lightly drill into the wall;
- Remove the door block and drill holes for dowels at the drilling points;
- Place the box in place and secure it with anchors. The box should be clearly level, since we have already verified everything before.
If you fix the box with long self-tapping screws, then they are installed around the entire perimeter at intervals of half a meter, but the heads of the screws need to be hidden somehow. They can be covered with a decorative strip or plastic covers.
Anchor bolts are powerful things and 3 points are enough to fix the box - two points under the hinges and one under the lock plate. In combination with polyurethane foam, this is enough.
Now we fill the perimeter of the box with polyurethane foam. We move from the bottom up, the foam needs to be blown out without fanaticism, because when it expands it can squeeze out the door frame.
Plus, at the time of blowing in the foam, the door block must be assembled and three-millimeter templates must be inserted around the perimeter, this will protect the frame from deformation.
Remember: the door block cannot be mounted only on “bare” foam (without screws or anchors).
Method number 2. Metal hangers
If fastening the box with self-tapping screws or anchors is not suitable for you, the same can be done using metal hangers. These hangers are used for mounting frames under drywall.
Using hangers to fix the door frame.
The technology is similar:
- Assemble the box;
- Insert the box into the opening and level it;
- Fix the box with wedges in the opening;
- Bend the wings of the hangers along the wall;
- Mark the entry points of the dowel-nails and drill holes for them;
- Attach the wings of the hangers to the walls with dowel nails;
- Fill it with foam and wait for it to harden.
The size of the frame for double-leaf interior doors is twice as large, which means there is a higher probability of the posts and crossbars being squeezed out by foam, so installation on hangers is optimal here.
Fixing the box for double doors on suspensions.
Conclusion
Both of the above methods have been tested in practice and work perfectly. For the same craftsmen who want to install interior sliding doors we have prepared step by step instructions.
Installing interior doors with your own hands is not as difficult as it seems.
You have decided to change the interior doors in your apartment, you have already decided on the color, model, manufacturer and even the door store where you will order them. However, before starting work on installing interior doors, there is a very important stage on dismantling old ones and preparing doorways.
Dismantling the interior door:
- Remove the door leaf (A).
- We remove door frames(B).
- The space between the door frame and the doorway is usually filled with foam or other sealant that must be removed (B).
- On the side vertical elements door frame We make cuts from top to bottom, at an angle to the wall (D).
- We break out the sawn-off lower and then upper vertical parts of the door frame (D).
- We break out the upper horizontal beam of the door frame, as well as the lower one, if present (E).
- We clear the doorway of any remaining installation materials.
Preparing the doorway:
1. Depending on the size door leaf new door needed determine the size of the opening . For many doors Russian manufacturers(such as Volkhovets, Ulyanovsk doors, Varador, Ocean, Leader, OSB, Pokrovsky doors and others) the sizes presented in the following table are suitable:
(Attention! Measurements of the height of the doorway are made from the finished floor, that is, from the already laid floor covering!)
|
Door leaf dimensions Width x Height (mm) |
Opening dimensions |
|
|
Width (mm) |
Height (mm) |
|
|
From 630 to 660 |
From 1950 to 1970 |
|
|
From 680 to 710 |
From 1950 to 1970 |
|
|
From 680 to 710 |
From 2050 to 2070 |
|
|
From 780 to 810 |
From 2050 to 2070 |
|
|
From 880 to 910 |
From 2050 to 2070 |
|
|
From 980 to 1010 |
From 2050 to 2070 |
|
2.
Eliminating shortcomings
doorway. If during dismantling old door The doorway has been damaged and needs to be restored and plastered. It is important to take into account following features:
Height (H) the doorway should be the same across the entire width: the floor should not have differences, and the upper part of the opening should be horizontal and parallel to the floor.
· Width (W) doorway should be the same along the entire length: the left and right side parts of the opening should be parallel to each other, and at the junction with the floor and the upper part of the opening they should form a right angle equal to 90 degrees.
Thickness (T) The walls should be the same throughout the opening, without narrowing or widening.
By dismantling the door and preparing the doorway on your own, you can save some money. But in order to new door was installed correctly and pleased you with its appearance for many years, it is necessary to produce it with very high quality preparatory work. Therefore, we recommend that you carry out dismantling work by specialists. Tiffani company, Moreover, our employees have extensive experience in this area and have all the tools necessary for the work.
Trust the experts, save your time, because it is known that time is also money.
Door companies, suppliers and stores offer a huge number of options for furnishing residential, commercial and production premises. Moreover, the cost of many of them is more than acceptable. However, the installation price does not always seem affordable to us, if only because there is an understanding that such a procedure can be performed independently. However, how to do this? How can you, for example, prepare an opening with your own hands for installing an interior door? Let's try to answer these questions by offering recommendations regarding preparatory and installation work.
Advantages
We have already mentioned saving money when doing it yourself. But are there any other advantages to such a solution? Of course, if you have high degree responsibility and accuracy, then surely, by following the instructions, you will be able to achieve a more accurate result than many professionals. After all, these qualities are needed, and experience is taken into account in the recommendations given. So you have everything you need to take action.
Why do this
Let's consider why you need to do preparatory manipulations:
- Be able to rigidly fix the box in the opening. An unreliable option may become deformed during operation, which will cause damage to the canvas, floor or other interior elements.
- No gaps between the casing and the wall. Sometimes such a gap remains, which can spoil the impression of the result. This may be caused various factors that need to be eliminated before installing the box. Most often you have to level the wall, at least in the area where the door is installed.
- Attractive appearance of the walls. Sometimes the actual dimensions of the opening turn out to be larger than expected. This makes it necessary to supplement the space with some material. It could be polyurethane foam, drywall, wooden block or cement-sand mortar.
- Removing the need to cut the door to height. Sometimes the canvas exceeds the height of the opening. In order not to cut it (after all, this is impossible to do or is associated with certain risks of spoiling the material), you can start preparing the opening by removing the excess part.
Preparation of actions
You need to start the procedure by preparing the funds personal protection. After all, the work will be associated with dust, dirt and solid elements that can get into the eyes, respiratory organs, skin, hair, and so on. To avoid unpleasant consequences and protect yourself from possible injuries, it is recommended to wear:
- headdress;
- glasses;
- closed shoes and clothing;
- respirator.
Tools
You should also prepare the following tools:
- perforator;
- grinder with diamond blade;
- nail puller;
- hammer;
- chisel;
- roulette;
- pencil.
Dismantling
Preparing a doorway for installing an interior door, as a rule, starts with dismantling the old one. First you need to remove the canvas. This can be done safely by unscrewing the screws holding the hinges. Next you should remove the platbands. If there is a seal between the opening and the frame, it must be removed. It is necessary to make cuts on all elements. First you need to break out the lower parts of the box, and then the upper ones. All that remains is to clear the opening from the remains of the old box.
Features of preparation
- The doorway must be made larger than the frame by 1-3 cm. The remaining space can be filled with polyurethane foam.
- The opening needs to be strengthened. The bars must be pressed down so that they do not wobble, and the bricks and plaster must be sealed with mortar.
- Along the entire perimeter, the depth of the opening should be constant. You may need to use putty, plaster or drywall.
- Contact floor coverings two rooms should be carried out in the middle of the canvas. Otherwise, both coatings will be visible on one side.
- If the opening is at perpendicular wall, it should be redone in advance, otherwise later you will have to perform more complex installation, for example, with cutting the platbands lengthwise. It is necessary to build up the wall from the side of the perpendicular wall, and also cut it off from the opposite one.
Process
Preparing the opening for installing an interior door can be done after determining its dimensions. To do this you need to measure the box. As already noted, the opening should be 1-3 cm larger.
Preparatory activities must ensure the shape, size and quality of the opening in order to complete the installation at the proper level. As a result of following all the recommendations, it should turn out that the size of the opening will be completely suitable for installing the door. This applies to height, width and depth - all parameters need to be brought to the proper level. In this case, the required appearance so that the interior of the room is not damaged after all the actions.
Conclusion
There are no particular difficulties in preparing openings for doors, especially for those who have taken part in the renovation of a room at least once. As in any business, attentiveness and consistency are important here, so it is important to take into account the recommendations given, then the result will be high-quality and reliable.
And if preparing doorways for installing doors seemed too complicated to you, or you have doubts, then you can call specialists. This decision will not require much effort from you, but you will need money, since the work of professionals often costs a lot. However, in this case the result will be of high quality. Moreover, many provide guarantees, so the risks are minimal.
