Weather Stripping

Feb 26

After the polar vortex last week, I was reminded how important good weather stripping is around your doors! There is a weather strip that runs along the bottom of the actual door (the only way to get to it is to remove the door) and the other type is a formed plastic/rubber strip that pushes into a groove in the door frame itself. Take a look at yours for any of the following issues:

It doesn’t match the color of the trim. Very common in older homes when all the stained woodwork got repainted to white, the weather stripping didn’t get replaced and is still black or brown. Worse, maybe it accidentally got painted, too! Bottom line, the weather stripping should be the same color as the door frame and trim, not the color of the door itself.

It’s beat up. After all, it is just plastic and can tear fairly easily when moving furniture in and out of homes or in my case, my old dog used to tear the heck out of it when someone came to the door to greet them.
It’s no longer effective. Overtime, the weather stripping can become flattened and hard and no longer working as well as it used to keep out drafts. If you run your hand along the edge of the door and feel cold air coming in by the drove, it’s a good time to replace it.

Whatever the reason, replacing it is fairly easy and cheap to do! I recommend first getting a pair of needle nose pliers and starting at the bottom along a side to pull firmly and get about 5” out. Take a pair of scissors and cut off 1” and then push the other back in. This is your sample to take to the hardware store if you want to stick with the same style. You can most likely change it as the door frame grooves are pretty standard, but in my case with my dog, I regularly replaced the bottom 4’ where he was constantly tearing it and I wanted it to be identical to the existing weather stripping. If you’re replacing all three sides, it likely won’t matter.

When you go to the hardware store, you just buy two longer pieces for the sides and one 36” for the top (cut with scissors if your door is smaller). If you have an oversized door, you may need to buy three long pieces to do 1 ½ on each side. Same across the top if you have a double door entry.

When you are ready, just use your pliers and remove all the weather stripping and then starting across the top, push your piece in. Then move to one of the sides and start at the top to get a tight corner and then push in down the rest of the door. Repeat on other side.

Weather stripping is another one of those little details that can make a big difference in both functionality and aesthetics!