Tips-N-Tricks: Building A Shed Door
Can I share with you my experiences in installing and building a shed door? Building a shed door is not the easy task that many people think it is. If it isn't done right, building a shed door can turn in to a nightmare of epic proportions!
First Things First - What Type of Shed Door Will You Need?
Before you begin building a shed door, you need to give some consideration both to the size of your shed overall, as well as the size of the door opening. Perhaps the most common approach to building a shed door is to build 'carriage house' doors. These are commonly installed as double doors, that clasp together in the middle, without any door jamb.
As their name indicates, carriage house doors originated on sheds designed for the storage of carriages which were pulled by horses. These are commonly installed when building a shed door, as they permit both sides of the door to swing completely out of the way -- they are an ideal choice if you are building a shed door to store large pieces of equipment, vehicles or farm implements. The downside of carriage doors is that when they are unlocked, they swing freely, and because of that they can become caught up in the wind. Another problem with carriage doors is one of security. In a typical installation, when building a shed door with a carriage house design, there may be only one lock, usually a padlock, keeping the doors locked. These doors are very easy to force open. For all these reasons, many people today are building a shed door using a different approach: a sliding door. This may reduce the size of the opening (because the door does not fold out of the way), but the entire door will be securely attached to runners or tracks at the bottom and top edges of the door. When building a shed door, I recommend this type. Sliding doors are best when building a shed door because you can secure them with one or more better-quality locks when the door halves are brought together. Strengthen Your Doors When Building A Shed Door Many people, unfortunately, opt to use particle board and other similar materials for their doors. This is a big mistake when you are building a shed door. Use solid wood -- or plywood at least. You can reinforce the door by attaching wood beams - usually in an 'X' pattern - across the face of the door. As well, when building a shed door, try to reinforce the door frames and posts of your shed as well. Not only for security reasons -- the wind can sometimes catch your shed doors and exert tremendous force on them, which puts strain on the frames. Have A Care For The Hardware Did you know that one of the ways that burglars sometimes enter a shed is not by forcing the door down - that would make too much noise. Instead, many of them will simply take out the screws that hold the padlock or hinges! However you can thwart them when you are building your shed door -- just use screws that cannot be reversed out. They are available from most DIY centers. To further enhance the security of your outdoor shed here are some additional strategies. When building any shed door, you can also install a barrel bolt latch, that will hold one of the doors securely closed, so that you can fasten the other door to it. I have also seen some sheds installed with security alarms - they can be easily attached when building a shed door, and will sound if the doors are opened without being de-activated first.
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