Front Door

[Juju]

A bit of context: our house is straight on to the street and we're slightly below ground level so when you open the front door into the hallway there are 2 steps down. Anyway, when it rains, the rain comes under the front door and is made worse by passing traffic which splashes water up the front of the house.

I have 2 questions: first, I've read all the useful posts about stripping, suitable paints, etc but I was wondering whether it is 'better' for the door to have all the paint stripped off first? Or does this do damage? I know it's a lot of work having done it in a previous house. I know you get a better finish but I want to do the best thing for the door given that it gets a regular soaking and dirty from the traffic.

Second - the steps in the hallway are wooden and no doubt they will rot soon with the rain coming in soaking the carpet. Would it be better to tile the steps or even seek LBC to put some stone steps in? Then we can rid ourselves of the nasty heavy duty carpet put in by a previous owner. There's very little we can do on the outside as the door is level with the pavement. The pavement is narrow past our house we can't even have a door mat outside or one immediately inside because of the steps so visitors have a tendency to wipe their feet on the carpet and not on the mat at the bottom of the steps!

Any suggestions welcome and I'll post a piccy if that helps people visualise.

 

[Andrew Bodenham]

Stripping or not will depend on the condition of the existing paint, and what you intend to do with it. If the existing paint is sound and you are going to re-coat it with similar then there's no point in stripping it off.
If the existing paint has failed, or if you want to change to a different paint system (e.g. Sikkens, Osmo, linseed etc.) then stripping to bare wood will enable the new system to perform as intended.

The internal steps are wood, yes? Covered in carpet? Or the carpet is at the bottom of the steps, in the hall? Any which way, the timber steps are unlikely to rot unless they are constantly damp. Perhaps you need to have an absorbent mat at the bottom of the steps, leave the wooden steps exposed so they dry off quickly, and accept that it's always an area which is going to need frequent cleaning and a new bit of matting every couple of years.

Get your weatherproofing sorted on the door as much as possible, but it sound like an annual coat of paint will be required given the heavy wear situation.

A pic would help!

 

[worms]

Don't know if it would be appropriate to Witney, but in a number of the fishing villages on the East coast, they used to have a board fitted across the doorway on the outside, which you had to step over to enter. I've never really understood the reason for these, perhaps it stopped rain blowing in or draughts blowing under the door.

You could always fit this in channels either side of the doorway so that it was easily removed, for ease of access when needed.

 

[Juju]

[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]

This is a photo of the front door. Thanks for ideas so far.

 

[inwood]

Is there any external drainage (e.g. soil pipework, gutter pipework) on the front of the house. If there is you could consider installing a threshold or linear drain:

http://www.pavingexpert.com/drain06.htm

(right in front of the door and draining this to the gutter pipework underground. It would involve a bit of digging and liasing with building control but would solve the problem permanently

 

[Juju]

Thanks - I really like the idea of the drainage channel and yes we have guttering and a soil pipe exiting the front of the house. I'll speak to the Council about it but not sure what they'll think about us messing about with their pavements. It's certainly something that would benefit quite a few of my neighbours as well. At the end of the street, the houses have little flood gates on their front doors because it's worse at the bottom of the hill (and they're near a culvert which sometimes floods).

Just realised our front door is rotten at the bottom so we need to sort this out otherwise we'll be replacing the bottom of the door on a regular basis! We're not much good at carpentry so am hoping I can find someone to do the necessary repairs.

 

[shelli]

I'll speak to the Council about it but not sure what they'll think about us messing about with their pavements. It's certainly something that would benefit quite a few of my neighbours as well.

- Hi Juju

Don't spend any money until you have contacted the highways agency - they have a budget for works like this - If vehicles are spraying up house walls and run off water from road & higher pavement getting into your house contact them.

A cottage we manage had same problems - we contacted Highways Agency (got number through local council) in February 06 and they came in April 06 (after start of new financial year). As well as your problems this end cottage was at the bottom of a hill so it also got rain running down from road and pooling against it's gable end wall. The highways men came and dug a drain all the way down the side of the road to collect rain, stopping water pooling and also continued drain under the lane just before the cottage to send water along a different route into a field to join a small beck. If space is limited on the road for long drain they might be able to sink half gutters or shallow drains (carpark style with grilles on top) into the road edge of the pavement.

I was amazed at how easy it was to organise - they did what they said they would when they said they would do it :shock:

regards
Shelli

 

[Juju]

Thanks Shelli for info about Highways Agency. Very interesting! I think in the first instance we need to repair the door and doorframe. If the problem continues, I'll contact them. I imagine it will continue just because of the narrow pavement, fast traffic (should only be 30mph there but drivers seem to think that doesn't apply once they're out of the traffic...) and our side of the road being below ground level. Witney has had flooding problems but things have improved a bit in our street since a few drains have had work on them.