A pair of French Doors as they were first hung unglazed: you can see the gap beneath the door which would later be filled with cement, sandstone and brass. |
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The Hanging
The doors are quite large and, once glazed would be quite heavy, so we hung the doors and windows before they were glazed.
This certainly made the installation easier and the subsequent glazing was no more difficult than if it had been done beforehand.
Over the years the timber has shrunk slightly so that in 2008 we had to redo the door-jambs to close the gaps which had opened up as a result of the timber shrinkage.
This was a job I had been dreading as it slowly became apparent that the timber was not going to return to its original dimensions once the wet season returned.
Especially the french-door pairs I thought would be a severe challenge as it would require one of the doors to be removed and then re hung!
After much thought I decided to do this one hinge at a time without totally removing the door and the whole process took only a few hours and worked wonderfully - the latches lines up perfectly, the gaps were closed to a nominal 2mm and the draughts were eliminated!
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