A Door in the Wall

Wall number one now has two sides–meant for each side of the inside entry door.

Wall on right side of door

Wall on right side of door

The next step is a door in the wall. We plan to have an airlock entry. This is an old idea, to block off direct entry to the main house through an entry room that holds boots, coats, shoes, and cold or hot air from the outdoors.

Dibble Floorplan 11-14-12

Dibble Floorplan 11-14-12

The room also removes the main house from the garage so potentially from any fumes that might escape into the house from that area. The idea is that all the doors are kept closed except when entering and leaving the house. This is one of those user dependent features for energy efficiency, if not used correctly with one door shut before the other opens, it is ineffective. LEED also requires a storage space for shoes at the entry to keep outside allergens and dirt from entering the living space. So this entry room will gain that point in EQ, Indoor Environmental Quality.

I bought a door for this space from a craigslist ad. I was looking for a 36″ wood door with full glass that had not been painted and was in reasonable shape. FOUND it for $50. I didn’t even argue about the price. It has a lot of screwed in connections for blinds but it is is great shape for an older door. Of course it came without a door frame so I had to hunt up a clear pine frame. Turns out that you can’t buy a pine kit anymore in the box stores! I had to buy the two sides and the door stop pieces. I have plenty of left over pine 1 x 6’s for the top of the frame. But I didn’t want to try to rout the side pieces in our existing lumber and the new pre-routed side pieces were about $12 each. The stops were $7.50 each and I had to buy 7 footers because the 10 footers were horribly warped. How can they even stock boards like that in a store? But together the pieces were less costly than the MDF kits @ almost $60.

I have found more than one floating framing style for doors. In the first, the door just hangs from the casing which is suspended by nails in the frame.

Floating wall door frame

Floating wall door frame

This is a labeled diagram of the same type of installation. Just the door frame is meant to float in the doorway although this one has double header plates.

DOOR_FRAME_SET_IN_FLOATING_WALL

The second style is meant for sound proofing the room. It has a plywood header that is insulated on each side. It also has triple door studs as well as gaskets between the floating frame and the floating wall. Notice the jack studs support the door frame and continue to the bottom plate.

Floating wall door framing 2

Floating wall door framing 2

The version that we will use has a double frame and the jack studs will float with the door casing. The frame is attached to the floor plate as in this diagram. The floating connection is at the door header and the bottom plate can heave sliding the door up on nails attached to the upper header. The framing itself has a “false header” that is not nailed to the king stud.

Door frame with floating jack stud

Door frame with floating jack stud

Just for reference this is typical weight bearing door framing.

Typical door header

Typical door header

The entry door frame is done. Now onto another wall.

Air Lock Entry Inside Door Frame

Air Lock Entry Inside Door Frame

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