draught around UPVC kitchen door

[ashdale]

Ten years ago I had a UPVC kitchen door fitted--it was made by Coastal. Although I was satisfied with it at the time, I am not so happy these days, especially in winter, because of the draught around the outside edge of it.

In fact the rubber seal on the frame doesn't quite touch the outside face of the door when the door is closed and the rubber seal on the door doesn't quite touch the inside face of the frame when the door is closed. You can tell this by running a knife blade between the seal and the corresponding plastic face.

I can't see what mechanical adjustment I can make to improve matters. My current thought is to stick some rubber strip along the outside edge of the door (ie, the edge where the latch tongue protrudes from), leaving spaces for the tongue and locking levers. It would prevent passage of air around the door when closed, though of course it might not look very pretty when the door was open.

Are there any other recommendations you guys can make? For instance, could I get fatter sealing strips anywhere?

 

[Maxsys]

Can you post some pics of the locking mechanism and any other bolts that go from the door into the frame when it is shut and locked? Also a pic of the frame where all of these go in, there may be adjustment it just may not be obvious.

 

[ashdale]

These are of the door (with the lock sticking out, for clarity), middle, top and bottom:

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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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and these are of the door frame:

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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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with a close-up of a latch socket:

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• ashdale
• 16 Jan 2012
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The latter is so you can see you can't slide the brass-coloured strip towards the outside (making the door squeeze tighter onto the outside seal) as there's a screw head in the way.

 

[Alarm]

That latch strike in the middle pics 1st one. Looks like it can be moved over a bit.
loosen off the two screws and move it towards the outside as far as possible.

 

[Maxsys]

Alarm is right, but that only adjusts the closure when the door is not locked, just closed.

In picture 2 and 3 you can see the small round cam roller, you can adjust these with an allen key, this should pull the door in more when you lift up the handle, it is a case of trial and error and messing about.

 

[ashdale]

Thanks guys. There was about two millimetres clearance on the lock striker plate attachment slots so I pushed the plate outwards and retightened. I rotated the cams on the latch levers 180 degrees (I assume the centrepunched mark indicates the cam lobe) and now the top half of the door down to the handle is sealed (slight resistance when a knife blade is inserted). Still a slight gap below the handle though.

I will check with a spirit level that the frame and the door are both vertical, or at least equally off-vertical if they aren't vertical. The persistent lower gap would otherwise indicate that the bottom hinge isn't far enough "outwards". However the hinges don't have adjustments, do they?

 

[Maxsys]

However the hinges don't have adjustments, do they?

Some do some don't the bottom may not be pulling in if the door has dropped, it may mean the cam bolt is not actually doing anything, although this would be unusual. It could be that the door is "not over" far enough into the frame, if you get my drift.

Check the hinges, nothing to lose, up and down adjustment or side to side adjustment may help.

 

[ashdale]

You're right. I put some sellotape over the striking plate for the bottom roller, closed the door and locked it. When I opened the door, the sellotape hadn't been depressed so clearly the roller isn't reaching the plate.

I checked with a spirit level. The frame is pretty vertical, the edge of the door is very fractionally non-vertical. This would explain why the roller isn't reaching the plate.

This is my bottom hinge on the door. I'd obviously have to loosen all the hinges first but how do I ADJUST this bottom hinge?

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• ashdale
• 19 Jan 2012
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[Maxsys]

You will have to adjust both hinges, and there are two sets of adjustment, the large cross head screws you can see will adjust the door in the frame, so lateral adjustment.

The second is the up and down of the door in the frame, there should be some plastic caps on the top and/or bottom of the hinges, if you remove these you should see an Allen key adjustment which will move the door up and down, trial and error I'm afraid, but you should be able to sort it with a bit of messing around.

 

[ashdale]

I got round to looking at the hinges this morning. I removed the plastic caps from the bottom two of the three hinges and this is what I have. The first image is the top of the bottom hinge and the second is the bottom of the middle hinge. (I couldn't see enough to get the camera below the bottom hinge!)

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• ashdale
• 23 Jan 2012
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• ashdale
• 23 Jan 2012
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Using a Phillips screwdriver, by turning clockwise (screwing in), I saw the hinge pin going backwards. (This was to see how the thing worked!)

Since my door apparently isn't meeting the frame enough on the lock side, I "unscrewed" the four Phillips screws slightly and could see the slight change in position of the pin tops. However I discovered that when the door was closed and the rubber seal seemed tight enough on the frame, I couldn't LOCK the door. The key turned so far and then stopped, even though the key would "lock" with the door open. This implies that my slight adjustments moved the door so much that the lock levers wouldn't align with the latch plate holes. I find it hard to believe that such fractional movement could have interfered with the lock lever mating, but that's how it seemed to be!

The tiny Allen keys in the middle of the hinge seem to be what grips the door part of the hinges onto the hinge pin. Perhaps I need to lower or raise the door on the hinge pin to counteract the lock lever problem? Though looking closely at the hinges, I can't see much freedom for up-or-down movement!

Or should I be adjusting the top hinge as well?

 

[Maxsys]

Yes you need to do the top as well, and yes the slight movement can throw it out quite a long way, it is a bit of trial and error to get it right