Building An Exterior Door Jamb From Scratch

Measure your door carefully and cut the opening to fit using a reciprocating saw.

Building an exterior door jamb from scratch.

Building a doorjamb is a relatively easy project. Installing a new door frame is not a difficult task and can be learned by understanding the simple steps involved. Installation of any door goes a lot easier if you mount the hinges on the door first rather than on the jamb. Determine the size of the door opening.

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. 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. Some preformed exterior doorjamb boards will already have weather stripping attached to them. You can purchase precut boards for this project or you can purchase trim boards and cut them to size yourself.

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. I m building a custom replacement exterior door for a roughly 100 year old house out of cedar. How nick makes a custom door jamb step by step. Add 1 1 2 inch to the height and cut two pieces.

Building your own jambs is cost effective because you can purchase slab doors cheaper than prehung units. Follow along i hope you ll learn something and enjoy created. Measure the width and height of the door. This is the first of three videos on hanging doors for those who want to see nick s not really a workshop w.

Hinges usually go 8 inches from the door s top 9 inches from the bottom and at the.