Worcester Storm Doors

Screen Doors

A screen door earns its keep about four months a year, roughly Memorial Day through the first cold snap in October, and then it has to survive whatever gets thrown at it the rest of the time. Mesh matters more than people think. Standard fiberglass is fine for a front porch. If you have a dog that treats the back door like a suggestion, we run pet-resistant vinyl coated polyester, which is about seven times tougher and does not turn into a Slinky the first time a lab leans on it.

Most screen doors we hang take two to three hours, including a pneumatic closer set so the door does not slam, plus a wind chain so a gust off the hill does not fold it backward.

And that magnetic screen door in the kitchen catalog? It's a curtain, not a backyard door.

Retractable Screen Door

If you like fresh air but hate looking at mesh nine months a year, this is the one. A retractable screen door lives in a slim cassette screwed to the jamb, and the mesh rolls back out of sight when you're done with it. Handy on a backyard door you're in and out of all summer.

Install is usually a couple of hours per opening, and most of that is shimming. The jamb has to be plumb and the bottom track dead level, or the mesh racks, binds, and starts skipping out of its channel by August. We also fit units with a speed reducer so the screen doesn't snap home like a mousetrap when the kids let go.

It's a real door, not a magnetic screen door curtain flapping in the doorway. Different animal entirely.

Screen Door Replacement

Nine times out of ten, the door itself is fine and the mesh is shot. Cat went through it, a gust off the porch folded it, or the spline dried out and the screen bellies like a sail. Re-screening a good aluminum frame takes under an hour with fresh spline and fiberglass mesh, or pet-grade mesh if you have a dog who thinks the storm door is a suggestion.

Full screen door replacement is the call when the frame has racked out of square, the hinge screws have chewed through a soft pine jamb, or the closer bracket tore loose and took wood with it.

That last one matters. A closer bolted into rot will rip out again by August.

And if somebody sold you a magnetic screen door for the backyard door, we can hang something that survives a Worcester winter instead.

Storm And Screen Door

A storm and screen door is really one door doing two jobs, and the swap between them is where most of the aggravation lives. Ours come with interchangeable panels or a self storing triple track, so in April the glass slides up and the screen drops in without you hauling anything out to the garage.

Fit is everything. The hinge rail has to be shimmed plumb against the brick mold, the sweep set to kiss the sill and not drag, and the closer bracket anchored into wood, not just the jamb casing. Skip the wind chain and one gust off Green Hill Park sends the door into your siding like a Gronk spike.

One caution I give everybody: a full glass storm door on a south facing entry can cook a dark fiberglass slab behind it. Vented glass fixes that.

Front Doors

A storm door only works as well as the door behind it, so before I hang one, I look hard at what it's protecting. Plenty of front doors on Worcester triple deckers are original wood slabs that swell shut in a humid July and show daylight along the strike side by January. Flat weatherstripping, a worn threshold, hinge screws chewed out of soft jamb pine. Putting glass out front doesn't fix any of that, it just hides it.

Here's the one nobody warns you about: a dark steel or fiberglass slab behind a full view storm door, facing the afternoon sun, can cook. Enough to blister a finish. We spec a vented unit, a lighter color, or we leave the glass off entirely.

Slab, hinges, sweep and threshold is typically a single day.

Front Door Replacement

Here's the part nobody sees once the trim goes back on: a front door replacement is mostly carpentry, not door hanging. We pull the old unit, and about a third of the time in this city the bottom of the jamb and a chunk of subfloor come with it, soft as a wet sponge from years of snowmelt sitting on the threshold. That gets cut out and rebuilt before anything new goes in.

Then a sill pan, flashing tape at the corners, shims at every hinge, and low expansion foam only. The regular stuff bows a jamb just enough that the door sticks by August.

Most swaps are a one day job. What moves the number is rot, sidelights, and whether you want storm doors hung on the same visit while the crew and ladders are already there.

Front Entry Doors With Glass

Glass in a front entry door is where the storm door question gets interesting. Put a full-view unit over a dark fiberglass slab facing south and you build a little oven in that gap; heat behind the glass can climb high enough on a July afternoon to warp the slab and void the door manufacturer's warranty. So over anything dark we spec a vented model, or a half-screen, or we skip the storm door on that opening and say so.

Inside the door itself, watch the glass package. Insulated units with low-E, and tempered or laminated glass in any sidelite within two feet of the latch, because code wants it and because kids fall into doors.

When a seal fails you get permanent fog between the panes. No amount of Windex touches it. We swap the glass insert, not the whole door.

French Doors

French doors are the pair off the back of the house, the ones that open onto the deck and get used hard from Memorial Day to the first hard frost. Two panels, one astragal, and a whole lot of ways to get it wrong.

The usual failure is sag. Hinge screws that only bite the jamb instead of reaching the framing let the active panel drop a sixteenth or two, and suddenly the handle won't throw and you're doing the shoulder-check thing every time you carry the grill cover in. We run long screws into the stud, shim behind every hinge, and set the sill on a pan so February meltwater goes out instead of into your subfloor.

Swing direction matters here too. An outswing backyard door in a Worcester snow drift isn't opening until you shovel it.

French Entry Doors

French entry doors are a different animal from a single slab, and Worcester has plenty of them on the older colonials up around Salisbury Street. Two leaves, an astragal down the middle, a multipoint lock on the active side, and a threshold that has to sit dead level or you'll feel January coming through the seam.

That center joint is where bad installs show up. If the frame isn't shimmed square and the hinge side isn't fastened into solid framing, one leaf drops maybe a quarter inch by the second winter and the doors stop meeting. Then you're shouldering it closed like you're breaking down a door in a cop movie.

Most french entry doors swing in, so a traditional storm door won't work over them. A retractable screen door on the interior side is usually the answer.

Storm Door Larson

Larson is what I hang most often on Worcester triple deckers, and there's a reason: the hardware holds up. The full-view models let you swap glass for screen in about ten seconds without a screwdriver, and the mid-view models with a solid bottom panel take a kick from a kid, a dog, or a bag of groceries without denting. We install Andersen storm doors too, and both brands live or die on the install, not the sticker.

Here's where a storm door Larson job goes wrong. Someone screws the hinge rail to an out-of-plumb jamb, the door binds by spring, and the closer tears out of the head. We shim the frame true, cut the expander to the sill angle, and fit a wind chain every time. Two hours, sometimes three if the old brickmold is rotted and needs replacing first.

Backyard Door

Your backyard door takes more abuse in a year than the front one takes in five. Kids in and out with popsicles, a dog who thinks the slider is a suggestion, a grill going in July and a snowblower coming through in January. So I build the back differently. Heavier closer, full kickplate instead of a half, and a hinge side that swings away from the traffic path rather than into it.

If you have a dog, tell me before I order. A sliding glass dog door insert changes the panel I spec, and retrofitting one later means cutting glass that was never meant to be cut. A magnetic screen door hung over a busy backyard door lasts about one summer of that.

Sun exposure, panel width and whether we're framing into a deck landing all move what this takes.

What the job involves

Here's what actually happens on install day. I measure the opening in three places, because a house on one of these hills has usually settled and the jamb you think is square is out by a quarter inch. Then I check the casing. If the brick mold is soft where water has been sitting, that gets replaced first, since screwing a hinge rail into punky wood is how storm doors end up sagging by spring.

After that it's the hinge rail, the drip cap, the sill expander, the sweep, and the closer with a wind chain on it. Skip the chain and the first real gust up the hill folds the arm like a lawn chair.

Two to three hours for a clean opening. Longer if the trim needs rebuilding or the backyard door sits on an out-of-level step.

What it costs

Here's the honest shape of it. Labor on a storm door in Worcester generally runs $125 to $325 per opening. The door itself is what really swings the total: a plain aluminum full-view sits at the bottom, a heavier storm door Larson build with laminated glass and a concealed closer sits higher, and Andersen storm doors with the screen tucked up inside the frame sit higher again.

What moves it past that is the opening. Older three deckers off Pleasant Street rarely give you a square jamb, and rotted sill wood under the old aluminum has to be rebuilt before anything hangs straight.

Call me at (508) 406-9528 with your rough width and which way it swings and I'll give you a real figure.

Skip the sill work and the door stops latching by January.

Why choose us for this

Your storm door bangs open in every gust off the hill, the closer quit two winters back, and you've been stepping around it since before the first snow. You want this handled once, by somebody who finishes and then leaves you alone.

Here's what we won't do.

No number that moves: what we write down is what the invoice says, unless you change the order.

No half-started jobs: we don't open a second door somewhere else until yours latches, seals and swings right.

No pressure to sign today: nothing on our quote expires overnight.

No mess: the old door, the hardware and the shims ride out in our truck.

We're not the cheapest quote you'll get, and that's deliberate. Storm doors hung on an out-of-square frame drag by spring. The estimate itself costs nothing, with no obligation to book.

Frequently asked questions