“And the Bad Door of the Year Award Goes To…”

Unfortunately there is a seemingly countless bevy of homes deserving of this less than distinguished honor, but Endura had to choose one.  And the winners are… the Belcher’s.

Like most folks living with a sub par door system, the Belchers were caught completely off guard when word came in regarding the devastation that their good ‘ole French door had caused to their 5 year young house.  But let’s back up.

Early this year, Endura set out to find the perfect example of an inferior door unit exhibiting the tell tale signs of improper installation.  The issues we expected to encounter were completely eclipsed by the real problems we found.

The laundry list of improperly installed items and resulting damage from this unit is a lengthy one, but to keep it short and sweet, we’ll list the most extreme offenders.

 • Frame rot
 • Improperly installed weather strip – gaps and pinching
 • Improper mating of the sill and door bottom
 • Visual gap between the astragal and the doors
 • Very hard to push astragal bolts into place
 • Improperly installed flashing under the sill

As mentioned earlier, air and water infiltration had caused devastating damage.  Now, as disappointing as hard wood floor staining is, the real damage lurked below and out of sight.

After removing most of the old frame, we moved on to the final removal step; the trim board under the sill.  What we found under this board was not necessarily a shock to us, but nothing could have prepared the Belcher family for what they were about to see…
Rot, rot and MORE rot.  The combination of poor caulking around an inferior sill and improper flashing technique had caused the nearly complete disintegration of a large section of the treated rim joist surrounding the perimeter of the floor.  But the putrefaction didn’t stop there.  The subfloor was also rotten to a depth inside the house of about one foot and spanning the entire width of the door unit.

Now faced with very costly repairs to the house’s frame on top of the cost of the beautiful new door system, it quickly became clear to this family that while the aesthetic appeal of a door may be what sells, it’s actually the quality and installation of it’s surrounding components that should never be overlooked.

When our crew was finished, the Belcher’s had this to say:  “We never realized what an impact the components surrounding a door really have.  We knew the old unit was letting air in, and we’ve been trying to ignore the discoloration of our floor, but what we didn’t know was how long ago this should have been addressed.  This has been a real learning experience, and we feel so confident now that we have a quality product we can count on for a lifetime.”

After our visit to the Belcher’s, these grateful people are firm believers that… IT’S NOT A DOOR WITHOUT ENDURA.