Building An Exterior Door Jamb From Scratch

Building a doorjamb is a relatively easy project.

Building an exterior door jamb from scratch.

If you re not using premade jamb material or if your walls are a nonstandard thickness you can buy 5 or 6 inch wide lumber and rip cut it to the width of the wall using a table saw. Some preformed exterior doorjamb boards will already have weather stripping attached to them. I m building a custom replacement exterior door for a roughly 100 year old house out of cedar. This is the first of three videos on hanging doors for those who want to see nick s not really a workshop w.

Follow along i hope you ll learn something and enjoy created. When building a door jamb to fit a standard wall with a two by four frame and 1 2 inch drywall on each side the width of the jamb board typically is 4 9 16 inches. Determine the size of the door opening. If you have to replace or repair a door jamb it s most advisable to build an entire new door frame.

Installation of any door goes a lot easier if you mount the hinges on the door first rather than on the jamb. How nick makes a custom door jamb step by step. Installing a new door frame is not a difficult task and can be learned by understanding the simple steps involved. Building your own jambs is cost effective because you can purchase slab doors cheaper than prehung units.

A typical door opening is 2 inches 5 1 cm wider than the door size being installed to allow for the thickness of the jamb material and shims to plumb the jamb. Hinges usually go 8 inches from the door s top 9 inches from the bottom and at the. The size of the door opening will vary depending on the size of the door you plan to install. Measure the width and height of the door.

You can purchase precut boards for this project or you can purchase trim boards and cut them to size yourself.