How to Replace an Exterior Mobile Home Door

How to Replace an Exterior Mobile Home Door With Damaged Subfloor.

Before you begin the project, be sure you have a replacement door, prehung, the correct size for your mobile home...you will need to know: Wall frame thickness, ie: 2x4, 2x6, or old style 2x3. In some cases the original door was actually a standard door, but up until about 5 years ago mobile home doors were much shorter than normal doors because exterior wall height was lower.

Once you have the new prehung door on hand, look for the screws that hold the old door in: sometimes they are located behind the weather stripping where the door meets the frame, you also may have to remove the thirty or so screws from the exterior frame, usually concealed behind a plastic moulding.

Now that all the screws are removed, you can push the door out to the exterior side. Now you can remove the putty from the outside of the building where the metal frame was screwed in.

The sub floor is normally 5/8 particle board. You will have to locate the floor joists under the floor by finding the nail lines, then cut out the old subfloor in nice square lines. I have found it best to cut next to the joists, then tag in a piece of 2x6 on the old joists to hold up the replacement piece. This method is faster than trying to cut the old floor down the center of joists where the nails are.

Once your floor is repaired, you can install the new door. First you have to determine if the floor under the door is level, and the hinge side jamb is plumb. if so, you're lucky. Otherwise you are going to need a small mountain of door shims from the local hardware store.

Set the door in place and check to see that the space between the door and the frame, as viewed from inside, is equal top to bottom. This spacing is called the margin. When the margin is equal from top to bottom the door is square. You can shim the door square as needed, then apply a bead of clear silicone between the outside metal and the wall, in order to seal the door frame from further water leaking, then set the screws through the jamb behind the weather stripping. Do the hinge side first, then recheck your square.

Once you have installed all the screws, you can further seal the door by caulking around the bottom inside and out. Reattach the interior trim, caulk the interior with latex caulk, make sure there is no silicone on the exterior that will be visible or interfere with your touch up paint, and you're done...except for the painting of course = )

Noah

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