The aluminum door bangs in the wind, the screen sags, and the latch never quite catches.
Storm doors do two things nobody notices until they quit: hold the weather off your entryway, and let you open the house up in June without inviting every mosquito on Shrewsbury Street in for dinner. We hang them all over Worcester, along with screen doors, and most of the trouble we find isn't the door at all. It's the opening.
Houses settle, frames go out of square, and a door hung in a racked opening drags at the bottom corner forever, no matter how often somebody fiddles with the closer.
Below is how we measure and fit one, what the price hangs on, when a storm door isn't the answer at all, and the things people ask before booking. Call (508) 406-9528 weekdays and I can come measure your opening.
Screen Doors
Screen doors take more punishment than storm doors ever do, because nobody kicks glass and everybody kicks a screen. Standard fiberglass mesh gives up in a hurry in a house with a dog or a couple of kids, so we hang pet-resistant polyester in those openings and it shrugs off a paw without going baggy. Most calls I get aren't about the mesh anyway.
It's the frame sagging out of square, hinge screws chewed loose in a soft jamb, or a closer anchored into hollow trim so the thing slams like a screen door in a country song. We shim the jamb true, drive long screws into solid framing, and mount the closer where it has real wood behind it. If you have a slider out back, a sliding glass dog door panel beats cutting up good screen.
Mesh type and jamb condition are what swing the number.
Retractable Screen Door
A retractable screen door is the one where the mesh lives rolled up in a cassette along the jamb and pulls across only when you want air, then rolls itself away. No panel hanging there all season taking wind and hockey sticks. Most of the units I fit go on entries that already have decent weatherstripping, and on a pair of french doors I set two cassettes that meet in the middle with a magnetic catch.
The part that gets botched is the bottom track. If the housing goes on out of plumb, or grit gets packed in that track from a sanded walkway, the mesh drags and starts to bind on the return.
Width of the opening, single versus double, and how square the existing brickmold sits are what push the number around on these more than storm doors.
Screen Door Replacement
Most screen door replacement calls start with a frame that has gone soft, not with torn mesh. The old aluminum unit is hanging off three screws in a rotted hinge rail, and every gust racks it a little further out of square. So I pull the door and look at what the hinge side is actually fastened to. If that wood is punky, it gets replaced with solid stock before the new unit goes up.
Fasten a good door into mush and it sags by fall, and no amount of fiddling with the closer brings it back.
Width of the opening, how much carpentry the jamb needs, and whether you want plain mesh or a retractable screen door that rolls up out of the sun are what change the number. Storm doors share that same frame, so the prep is identical either way.
Front Doors
Front doors and storm doors work as one system, so I look at both when I come out. Hang a full glass unit over a dark entry slab that catches the afternoon sun and the trapped heat can blister the finish and bow the door, so on those openings I fit a vented one instead.
When folks ask me about therma doors, they usually mean an insulated fiberglass slab with a foam core. Those hold up well here, because they don't swell in August humidity the way a wood door does.
The rest of it is the opening. Plenty of entry openings in the triple deckers off Grafton Street sit a quarter inch out of square, and if the hinge side isn't shimmed true the deadbolt won't throw. Rotten framing under the threshold, sidelights, and the hardware you pick all push the job up.
Front Door Replacement
Front door replacement isn't the same job as hanging storm doors over an entry you already have. Most of the front doors I pull out of Worcester three-deckers sit in a frame that has shifted with the house, so swapping the slab alone gets you a door that latches in October and sticks by March. Old unit out, sill checked for soft wood, new prehung set plumb and shimmed behind the hinges, insulated around the jamb, trim run back on.
Skip the pan at the sill and water works under the threshold, and two years later you're paying to cut out rotted subfloor instead of paying for a door. Rot in the framing, a sidelight, glass in the slab, a heavier lockset: those are what push the cost of the work up. Steel holds paint well; fiberglass shrugs off dents.
Front Entry Doors With Glass
Front entry doors with glass are what most folks call me about first, and the choice usually comes down to how much daylight you want against how much privacy you're willing to give up. Any lite in a door you can walk into gets tempered or laminated glass, no exceptions.
The insulated units want a warm edge spacer, because a blown seal shows up as fog between the panes that no amount of vinegar and newspaper will touch, and the cure is a new glass unit, not a wipe. If your front step sits close to the sidewalk, reeded or obscure glazing gives you the light without the floor show. Glass area, sidelights, decorative caming, privacy glass and whether the slab arrives prefinished or needs staining all move the figure.
Storm doors out front shade that finish and slow the fading.
French Doors
A pair of French doors is really two doors sharing one opening, which is where most of the trouble starts. The inactive leaf carries the astragal and the strike, so if the jamb isn't set dead plumb the pair sags a hair and suddenly the handle misses, the seal gaps at the seam, and you're feeling February air across your ankles.
When I hang a set, I shim both hinge jambs, keep the reveal even top to bottom, and fine-tune the hinges until the two slabs meet flat with no light between them.
One thing worth knowing on this page: you can't hang a storm door over a swinging pair. Out-swing French entry doors onto a deck are a different build. Wider openings that need header work add framing time and push the job past a single afternoon.
French Entry Doors
Swapping a single slab for french entry doors is mostly a framing job with a door at the end of it. Two leaves have to hang dead square on the same plane, so I look hard at the header for sag before anything gets ordered, and if the opening has to grow, that header gets sized and set right rather than shimmed and hoped over.
The passive leaf takes flush bolts into a real strike in the sill, not a dimple punched in the threshold, and the astragal should meet the active leaf with even light the whole way down. Hung lazily, the pair starts dragging by the first humid stretch and never latches clean again.
One thing worth knowing: a double unit won't take standard storm doors over it the way single front doors will. Glass choice, sidelights, and whether that wall carries load all push the price around.
Backyard Door
Your backyard door is the one that actually earns its keep. Groceries, the dog, the grill, kids banging through it all afternoon, and it swings four or five times as often as anything out front. Which is why the stick-on magnetic screen door somebody buys in June is sagging by Labor Day, adhesive strip peeling off the trim, panels no longer meeting in the middle.
Storm doors on a back entry get hung with the hinge on the side that clears your deck stairs, a closer set so a gust doesn't fire the door into the railing, and a solid kick panel low down where the dog leans on it. Price back there depends on how wide the opening is, whether the jamb has gone soft from water sitting on the threshold, and whether you want full glass or a vented unit.
What the job involves
Storm doors hang off the casing you already have, so the job starts with the opening, not the door. I measure the width at the head, the middle and the sill, because casings on the older three-deckers around here are rarely square, and I check the hinge-side trim and the sill for rot. Soft wood gets rebuilt before anything gets hung on it.
Screw a hinge rail into punky casing and the door drops within a season, the latch quits catching, and then everybody in the house starts slamming it.
After that it's cutting the rail to the opening, shimming it plumb, setting the sweep so it just brushes the sill, and dialing in the closer and the safety chain. A straightforward swap runs about two hours. Width, the shape that casing is in, and whether the panel is full glass or a half-view with a fixed screen are what push the price up or down.
What it costs
What it costs to hang storm doors on a Worcester house depends on a few things I need to stand in front of before I can price them. How wide and tall the opening is, first. Then the door itself: a plain mill-finish aluminum unit sits at the bottom of the range, and the heavier insulated ones, the therma doors folks ask for by name, run higher.
Full-view glass with a swappable panel costs more than a half-screen and a fixed light.
The bigger variable is what is hiding behind the old trim. If the brickmold or the wood under the threshold has gone soft, that gets rebuilt before the new door goes on, because a soft sill will pull a fresh door out of square inside a year. Call me at (508) 406-9528 on a weekday and I will get you a number for your own opening.
Access counts too, and a door off a raised deck means ladders and a second set of hands.
When storm doors are the wrong fix
Sometimes storm doors are the wrong answer to the problem you actually have. If the jamb is soft where the strike plate lands, or the slab has bowed enough that you shoulder it closed on a humid day, hanging a nice new unit on that opening just bolts good hardware to bad framing. That is a front door replacement conversation. Same when the cold is not coming through the entry at all.
I have gone out to a freezing hallway on Route 9 and found the culprit was the seat under the bay windows, or two tired double hung windows a few feet away, in which case you want window replacement in Worcester and not another door. And on a dark, sun-baked slab, the trapped heat behind the glass can cook the finish and warp the skin.
Why choose us for this
You want one thing off the list: storm doors that latch, seal, and stop being a topic of conversation. Not a project. Not a callback in April.
Cheaper quotes get there by hanging the unit on whatever is behind the trim. If the brickmold is soft or the sill has gone punky, the door sags by the second summer, the closer starts slamming instead of closing, and the latch quits catching. I will not drive screws into rot and call that a install. Bad wood comes out first, even when that adds an hour nobody wrote down.
After the best part of 24 years at this, I can usually tell standing in the driveway whether your backyard door wants a full-view unit or a vented one, and how much sun and wind that side of the house takes.
The estimate costs nothing, and looking at one commits you to nothing.
Frequently asked questions
Do storm doors really cut the draft, or is that just a sales line?
They cut it. A properly hung unit puts a second sealed layer in front of your entry, and on a windy January night you notice it in the hallway instead of on the thermostat. Most of that gain comes from the sweep at the bottom and the seals against the casing, not from the glass, which is why a door hung out of square leaks about as much as the tired one you took off.
Will the install damage my existing frame or trim?
It shouldn't. We fasten through the exterior casing into solid wood, predrill so nothing splits, and shim the frame square before a screw goes home. If the casing is soft or the sill beneath it has gone punky, that gets dealt with first rather than screwed through and hoped for. The job runs about two hours and you are back the same day.
Should I fix the one I have or replace it?
Replace it when the frame has racked out of square, the hinge screws spin in stripped aluminum, or the panel gasket crumbles when you press it. That frame is finished. A torn sweep, a worn closer or a latch that will not catch is an afternoon repair, and I would rather do that than sell you storm doors you do not need yet.
Contact Worcester Window Replacement now
Contact me about storm doors, or about window replacement in Worcester generally if the call turns that way, and start by telling me which door is driving you crazy and roughly how wide it is. The number is (508) 406-9528, there's someone in the shop nine to five on weekdays, and a message gets a call back.
When I come out I measure the opening in three spots, because a hundred-year-old triple-decker porch door is rarely square, and I push a screwdriver into the hinge jamb. Punky wood gets rebuilt before anything hangs on it. Skip that and the new unit sags out of square by the second season, and then the latch never catches again.
Width, glass type, color, and whether you want a screen that rolls out of sight all move the figure. Thinking about front entry doors with glass while we're at it? Say so and I'll look at both.