Home Improvement

How to Remove an Existing Door

Purchasing a new front door for your home is one of the most exciting ways that you can transform the look of your house. It’s an attention grabbing item that has massive curb appeal and will make people notice the fresh look of your home from the street. With pre-hung doors becoming affordable, it’s never been cheaper or easier to put a new door into a house.

But before you install a new front door on your home, you need to take out your old door. It’s a process that can be relatively quick and easy. However, if you don’t do it correctly, you can damage parts such as the interior moldings that you will need for your new door. In order to do the job right, here are four steps to take to remove most doors:

Step #1: Taking the actual old door out of the door frame is fairly simply. All you need to do is tap the hinge pins loose by using a hammer and a set of nails. Once they are loose, just open the door and lift the door off. Most doors are heavier than you expect, so have someone available to help.

Step #2: Next you’ll need to take the old trim off of the frame. You can do this by using a pry bar to pull the trim off of the frame. Placing a putty knife between the pry bar and the wall will protect it from getting scraped.

Step #3: After this, you have to remove the exterior trim. This is done by cutting the caulk away from between the exterior trim and the siding and prying the trim away from the door jamb.

Step #4: You’ll then need to remove the jambs. You can cut through the side jambs by using a tool like a hand saw and then pulling them out.