Culburra Hemp House: Front Door and Roof to Wall Flashing

On the way down to site I stopped that the hardware store and met a friend at the hardware store. My front door was strapped to the roof racks of the car. She said to me "Are you going to put the front door in yourself?" "Yes" I replied and I did just that. My only previous door hanging experience was from a shed so I was a bit concerned about my lack of experience. My solution was to hand the door first then build the door jamb around it.

I bought the front door some months ago from The Door Shoppe at Richmond NSW. A shop that is only open on Saturdays and sells discounted, seconds and end of line doors. I finished the door with three coats of Cabots water based acrylic clear finish. Then installed the Lockwood Nexion all in one handle and lock. The instructions for the lock were easy to follow and this first part of the lock went in well. Next I used my sharp brand new chisel to cut out the housing for the hinges. It was worth buying a new chisel for the job as it made the work much easier.

I used Tassie Oak for the front door jamb as I had for the rest of the door jambs in the house. However Tassie Oak is variable in colour and the first batch I got was a medium warm brown colour similar to my window reveals, the next batch was a lighter brown but the timber I got for the front door was very light. The colour combination is not quite what I expected, now the door frame will be closer in colour to the rendered walls than to the door.

I measured the location of the hinges on the hinge side of the door jamb, remembering to leave a 5mm clearance at the bottom of the door, and chiseled out the housing for the hinges before I put the jamb up. Even taking into account the width of the jamb there was going to be way more room in the door space than the door and jamb could fill, so I attached a strip of 20mm to the hinge side of the door opening before I attached the jamb. After checking several times with the level the jamb went in easily and the door was able to swing on its hinges.

Hinge side jamb in place

Next came the closing jamb, where the only tricky park was finding timber the right width to use as blocking between the frame and jamb. Since the jamb on the lock side was much further out than on the hinge side I could not use the nail gun to attach it and resorted to some long screws. The top of the jamb was even further away from the frame and the long screws had difficulty going in, so this time I resorted to my favourite batten screws. The batten screw may have been a little bit too much as everything lines up neatly in the inside and I had tacked the top jamb to the side jambs with the bradder, but the batten screws were so strong that on the outside where the wedges I used to get the right distance for the blocking had not reached the screws bowed the outside edge of the top jamb up a little. Not a big problem as the door still close nicely and I got my 3mm gap between the door and the jamb right.

Lock side jamb in place

I then covered all my nails and crews and batten screws with the thinner pieces of the stops that were neatly attached with the bradder (fix out nailer). Disaster nearly struck when putting in the striker plate for the door lock. I snapped a screwdriver bit and the tip broke off in the screw while it was half way in. I could not get the broken bit of the screwdriver out of the head of the screw and could not get the screw out. The screw was stuck right where the tongue of the lock needed to go. Desperation called for invention and I got the thin disc on thee angle grinder and cut a new slit in the screw head. This now fitted a flat head screwdriver nicely. Not only did I get the screw out, after making the pilot hole bigger I was able to put the screw back in. I now have a nice lockable front door.

Finished front door

The damaged and fixed screw

Unexpectedly the scaffolding was still on site and I got a good close up look at the parapet flashing between the roof and the walls. The overflashing that covered the apron flashing had been cut into the hemp wall and attached with roofing screws. Under the upper windows it also left only a very small piece of wall about 25mm high that will make for some interesting rendering problems.