Building An Exterior Door Jamb From Scratch

Measure your door carefully and cut the opening to fit using a reciprocating saw.

Building an exterior door jamb from scratch.

Building your own jambs is cost effective because you can purchase slab doors cheaper than prehung units. Installation of any door goes a lot easier if you mount the hinges on the door first rather than on the jamb. Some preformed exterior doorjamb boards will already have weather stripping attached to them. You can purchase precut boards for this project or you can purchase trim boards and cut them to size yourself.

A typical door opening is 2 inches 5 1 cm wider than the door size being installed to allow for the thickness of the jamb material and shims to plumb the jamb. Installing a new door frame is not a difficult task and can be learned by understanding the simple steps involved. The door jamb is the vertical portion of the frame that runs along the sides of the door. If you re not using premade jamb material or if your walls are a nonstandard thickness you can buy 5 or 6 inch wide lumber and rip cut it to the width of the wall using a table saw.

This is the first of three videos on hanging doors for those who want to see nick s not really a workshop w. Determine the size of the door opening. Building a doorjamb is a relatively easy project. Add 1 1 2 inch to the height and cut two pieces.

Measure the width and height of the door. I m building a custom replacement exterior door for a roughly 100 year old house out of cedar. How nick makes a custom door jamb step by step. The size of the door opening will vary depending on the size of the door you plan to install.

Follow along i hope you ll learn something and enjoy created.