Something Unique You Need To Know About Prehung Doors
It’s quite tricky to choose the design and color of the door while building or renovating your home or office. Doors are not only for privacy & security purpose, but they also define the appearance of your home. Before deciding the aesthetics of the door, one must finalize between the prehung and slab door. These are the two types of doors that you’ve to choose from. But before this, you must know what is a prehung door and what is slab door? If you don’t know the difference then you cannot decide which one is appropriate.
What is a prehung door?
A prehung door is a complete set that comes with the door frame, hinges, and other accessories. This means to install a prehung door one has to remove the preinstalled frame if present. Purchasing this kind of door will remove all the hassles of joining different pieces together as it comes in ‘ready to install’ design. The convenience it gives makes it costlier than slab door plus accessories present in it make it heavier as well. This is a brief introduction to what is a prehung door.
What is a slab door?
To know the difference, it is also necessary to have some idea about a slab door. In simpler terms, a slab door is nothing but a piece of wood, metal, or fiber that comes in different shapes and sizes. Slab door does not have any accessories attached to it which means it is lighter as compared to the prehung door and cheaper as well. It is designed to be fixed in the preinstalled door frame of your house. Plus, you also have to buy handles, hinges, and other required counterparts.
Now you must have got a brief idea about what is a prehung door and slab door. This will clear a lot of confusion about these two and help in deciding which one is suitable for you. Let us put some more light on prehung doors to make you understand better.
The advantages of prehung door
After reading the above section you might have noticed that it is advantageous to use prehung door instead of a slab door. Let’s see what the key benefits are.
- The first and foremost thing about the prehung door is that it does not require any extra accessories for installation. It comes as a complete package that is ready to install.
- A prehung door is easy to fit as it comes along with the frame so one does not need to worry about fitting to the preinstalled frame.
- It is known to be weather tight in nature hence becomes a great option for use as exterior doors.
- This self-contained unit is also admired for having great finishing and appearance.
How to install a prehung door?
Now you must know what is a prehung door and its benefits. In this section, we will tell you how you can install this type of door.
We’ve told that a prehung door is a complete unit that comes along with all required accessories. This means that it is easy to fix. Let us see the installation process step by step.
- Prepare all the tools that are required during the installation process including shims, knife, screws, drill, foot level, saw, nailer, and multi-purpose tool.
- Remove the previous door and frame if you are replacing the old one.
- Make ready the prehung door by uncovering and dry-fitting it to ensure its working.
- Adjust frame size by making cuts after measuring to get the appropriate size frame.
- Insert shims to level and plumb the frame. You can also use wooden blocks to get the right adjustment.
- Apply & secure the jamb and cut off excess shims.
- Assure consistency in the gap around the door by checking the reveal.
- After checking reveal, start shimming all the sides and secure each of the shim using a nailer.
- Make proper dimensional adjustments and test the working of the door.
- If everything is alright, apply the door trim to cover up the shims and you’re done. What left is the only installation of the knob and striking plate.
Note– It is advisable to hire a professional door installer to get the best job done and avoid future issues.
When a prehung door should be the choice?
If something is good or better than others that doesn’t mean you can use it anywhere you want. Smartness lies in choosing according to the cost, requirement, and situation. After knowing what is a prehung door, you should also know when to use it. Below are some conditions where using a prehung door could be the best option:
- If there is no frame available where the door needs to be installed, then a prehung door is the best option.
- During the construction of a new property, it is better to opt for a prehung door.
- A prehung door is a great choice if the existing door frame is badly damaged and it is not feasible to apply the slab door.
- A prehung door is always best when it comes to the installation of the exterior door. The reason is weather tight property of prehung doors.
We have answered a lot of questions related to what is a prehung door in this article. We assure that you might have learned a bit about this type of door. But along with positives, there are some negatives as well. Now we will see some cons of prehung doors.
- The first disadvantage or con of prehung doors is that they are very heavy. The heaviness of these doors is due to preinstalled accessories that come along. This means they are quite difficult to handle.
- Though it is easy to install prehung doors yet the correct positioning is very much challenging. What we mean by saying this is it takes a good effort to correctly position the prehung door in the door opening. Right positioning is necessary to assure trouble-free working of the prehung door.
- Once installed, the prehung door requires some additional work as well which includes painting, drywall, and trim installation.
Conclusion
After going through this article, what is a prehung door might be history for you? The main question which might be revolving around your head is that is it good to go for the prehung door instead of the slab door? So the answer is that it all depends upon the purpose and condition for which you want to install the door. A slab door is best if you have a door frame in perfectly alright condition while during the construction of a new house prehung door is the best. After knowing what is a prehung door and a slab door, you can decide on your own which one will be the best for you.
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