Service

Sliding Door Frame Repair

The frame is the part worth saving. Rollers, glass and hardware are all replaceable consumables, but once the frame goes, you are buying a door. Most frames we see are repairable.

Call 619-923-0271

Racked and out-of-square frames

Buildings move. Foundations settle, soil expands and contracts through the wet and dry seasons, and forty years of small seismic events add up. The opening that was square when the house was framed frequently is not square now.

The symptom is a tapered gap: the door meets the jamb tightly at the top and leaves daylight at the bottom, or the reverse. We measure the diagonals, then shim and reset the frame within the rough opening to bring it back true. On serious cases this means removing the interior trim, but it is still a fraction of a door replacement.

Corroded and water-damaged sills

Water sitting in the bottom channel eventually gets past it. On a timber-framed wall that means rot in the sill plate beneath; on stucco it can mean corrosion spreading through the aluminium sill itself.

The tell is a soft or discoloured floor at the threshold, or staining on the interior trim. This is the one frame problem that gets rapidly worse if ignored, because the damage moves into the structure rather than staying in the door.

Weatherstripping and seals

The fin seals and pile weatherstripping around a slider are consumables with a life of roughly ten to fifteen years. Once they harden, compress flat or fall out of their channels, the door draughts, whistles in wind and lets water into the track.

Replacing them is inexpensive and it is the highest-value small repair on any older door — it addresses noise, draught and water ingress at once.

When the frame really is finished

We recommend replacement in three cases: perforating corrosion through the sill, structural rot in the surrounding framing, or racking severe enough that the opening cannot be brought back within tolerance.

In the first two we will usually recommend addressing the water source before fitting anything new, because a new door in a wet opening fails the same way the old one did.

A corroded aluminium sliding door sill and track on an ageing timber deck. — Surface corrosion can be treated and capped. Once the aluminium is perforated, the section is replaced.

From the van

Frame repair — from real jobs

Photographs from work we have carried out across San Diego County.

A sliding door panel removed and standing outside against the exterior wall of a house. — Frame work means the panels come out entirely. It is the only way to measure the opening's diagonals honestly.

Questions

Frame repair — common questions

How do I know if my sliding door frame is out of square?

Measure the two diagonals of the opening, corner to corner. If they differ by more than about an eighth of an inch, the frame has racked. The visible symptom is a gap that tapers from one end of the door to the other.

Can a corroded sliding door sill be repaired?

If the corrosion is surface pitting, yes — it can be treated and capped. Once the aluminium is perforated and water is passing through into the structure, the sill section needs replacing and any wet framing behind it needs attention first.

Is replacing weatherstripping worth doing on an old door?

It is the best value repair on any slider over ten years old. Fresh seals cut draughts, road noise and water entry, and they cost a small fraction of what people expect.

My floor is soft at the sliding door threshold. What does that mean?

Water has been getting past the sill for some time and the framing underneath is wet. Do not wait on this one. The door repair is straightforward; the structural repair grows more expensive every season it continues.