Water ingress under new (professionally fitted) garage door
- Thread starter kingandy2nd
- Start date
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It's a door. What the OP does with the room enclosed is of no concern to the fitter the requirement is for the the installation to keep out water.
You can't say "Well, its a bathroom and will get wet anyway, so the window I'm fitting can leak like a sieve"
On the contrary, it matters a lot. You wouldn't insist on a carpet fitter putting carpet in a wet room, then complain to the fitter that the carpet got wet. Garages get wet regularly, it is to be expected, it is what happens to garages when you park a car in them - that is what they are designed to accommodate, a wet car. So a door which allows some rain water in is no big issue really.
The door fitter has done what he was contracted to do - fitted a working door. I do think £3000 was a bit OTT for a door, but the OP isn't complaining about that, rather he is complaining about water leaking under the door. With the best will in the world - no door install could be expected to resolve that. He was there simply to fit a door, which he has done. The door fitting company might have been more helpful in their reply, maybe even suggested the stick down rubber suggested above - no doubt they probably have come across the same issue before.
I would expect professional fitters to know that their door will not provide a watertight seal without additional work and make this clear to their clients. The reality is that, rightly or wrongly, no-one keeps their Austin Seven in their garage these days (I'm constantly accusing my friends and relatives of "living" in their garages - washing machines, fridges, pool tables, sofas etc) and we don't expect puddles.
I can recommend the stick on weatherstrips, although a bit messy to fit they work well, my drive slopes down to the garage:
I found it helpful to cut a few inches off the roll to experiment to find the best position before glueing the strip down.
I can recommend the stick on weatherstrips, although a bit messy to fit they work well, my drive slopes down to the garage:
I found it helpful to cut a few inches off the roll to experiment to find the best position before glueing the strip down.
So, you fitted that?
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If course he is.
If he had paid £50 for a door and got some numpty with a Labrador to fit it for the price of a sandwich, then he may not have an argument.
But paying premium prices from a bone-fide firm then he has an expectation that the door would be fitted properly, securely and weather tight.
And no, he has not done what he was contracted to do. By your argument he could have fitted it upside down and it would work and so "done what he was contracted to do".
If the garage roof leaked, would you also expect them to fix that?
Yes. It's only the small area between acco drain and doors and a slight slope - water used to come in and now it doesn't.
Originally I has a set of uPVC french doors there (back of a through garage) but had to rip it all out to get my caravan through to my back garden.
What door was there before and did it have the same problem?
Thanks, the point I was making was it wasn't part of the original install, to keep water out.
Thanks for all the comments folks, looks like I’ve sparked a debate.
In answer to the question, this is a new double garage in an extension, so this isn’t a replacement like for like. However the old door was a crappy 70s up and over jobbie and didn’t have issues like this - albeit the garage concrete may have been laid differently.
The new door has a massive rubber seal on the bottom of it, so why bother fitting that if it’s ‘not supposed’ to keep water out.
Harry, I don’t know what beers your on today but talking about plasterers, carpet fitters and roofers are just bizarre and extreme analogies.
Personally I don’t think I, as the consumer, should need to specify that I don’t want puddles forming in my garage when placing an order for a new garage door…it’s implicit that the door should form a barrier to the outside elements.
In answer to the question, this is a new double garage in an extension, so this isn’t a replacement like for like. However the old door was a crappy 70s up and over jobbie and didn’t have issues like this - albeit the garage concrete may have been laid differently.
The new door has a massive rubber seal on the bottom of it, so why bother fitting that if it’s ‘not supposed’ to keep water out.
Harry, I don’t know what beers your on today but talking about plasterers, carpet fitters and roofers are just bizarre and extreme analogies.
Personally I don’t think I, as the consumer, should need to specify that I don’t want puddles forming in my garage when placing an order for a new garage door…it’s implicit that the door should form a barrier to the outside elements.
The rubber seal is designed to keep out dust, leaves etc and help the door shed water. It’s not designed to stop water coming into the garage. If it did, then any pooled water it was keeping out would just run into the garage when you opened the door.
In my opinion, the door supplier should have quoted for and supplied a raised threshold to stop runoff running under the door. You would have paid more for it, but they’d have fitted it at the same time as the door so wouldn’t have cost any more in labour. I’d be going back to the door company and offering to pay for the threshold if they come back and fit it for free.
That is insulting!
I didn't start it with the analogies, but they were all comparable situations. A garage door installer's job finishes once the door is installed, tested and is in working order. I fitted my own door, then much later I addressed the ingress which it suffered under the seal. The rubber seal is simply there to allow for discrepancies in the floor level, only to keep drafts out. You were expecting far too much in expecting it to keep any surface water out - again, that is not its pupose.
Having said that - you claim your original up and over door did not have that problem. Up and over doors do not normally have a rubber seal along the bottom edge and only deflectors down the side rather than seals, so I am mystified as to why a much better sealing door might leak, whereas its very leaky predecessor did not.
It makes no sense, unless the new door is leaking wind driven rain between the horizontal sections, then down to the floor. The sections will have a sorted of round tongue and groove joint, so ensure water cannot penetrate through between them. Are those sections fully closing up, before the door comes to a stop fully closed?
If you do still feel the door installer ought to be responsible for fixing the ingress issue, then try taking it further with them. I doubt they will have any legal liability, but they might fix it as a good will gesture.
LOL.
How do you work that out? Why should a garage door keep draughts out, but not water? Didn't you say it's just a garage, so presumably would be expected to be cold?
Why should it have deflectors down the side ... deflecting what? Not air, so it must be to deflect water .... ie to keep water out?
And yet all up and over garage doors have a massive gap around the sides and top .... allowing draughts in!
And a rubber strip on the bottom ... what's that for I wonder?
Exactly!
Well, possibly. The door installers specialise in fitting just these doors, likely fitting one or two per day, so they no doubt will have come across the ingress under the door many times before. I'm sure if they felt the extra seal was a regular business opportunity, they would offer them as part of their selling routine. As I suggested I doubt many of their customers will be all that bothered about a little ingress into a garage, which will get a wet floor regularly every time it rains and the car is parked. A wet floor is almost impossible to avoid in normal use.
Andy live and learn! if you didn't want water in your garage you should have trowelled the slab accordingly before it set.
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