Home Depot Sliding Glass Door Installation
As you know, Mr. Money Mustache likes to spice up his long summer vacations with occasional carpentry projects. Because of the, I’ve made peace with the fact that I’m at my happiest when I get to accomplish something useful at least once every week or so. So this week, I installed a new set of french doors out to the back patio at my Mom’s house here in downtown Hamilton (that’s Grandma Money Mustache to you). There was already a set of circa-1992 doors in place, but one of them had partially rotted away due to repeated water and insect exposure.
Plus, both doors tended to develop fog between their glass panes in winter. When you add in the fact that this area has a rainy climate with fairly cold snowy winters, we figured it would be quite a significant upgrade to pop in a set of new steel-clad glass doors with energy-star insulation rating and low-E/Argon-filled glass panes, solving all the problems in one go. When I got to her house last week, GMM had already clipped a Home Depot coupon offering 15% off of all exterior doors. So we decided to start our shopping there. We strategically chose a Home Depot location that was close to a branch of its biggest competitor – Lowe’s.
Reviewing the selection of doors in HD, we found what we needed: a 6-foot-wide by 80″ high set of doors, with a left-hand inswing on the primary door. Low-E glass, energy star, the whole deal.
Price was $539 before discount. The only problem was that the sole unit in stock had obviously been bought and then returned by another customer. Packaging materials were gone, frame and sill were dirty, screen was missing. So we decided to activate Step One in the Hacking Home Depot plan: Step One: If possible, find a discountable product: Look around to find any one-off or returned product that has what you need, then ask a store employee what sort of discount they can offer on the scratch’n’dent unit.
I found the department manager and with no negotiation at all, got $100 off of the door, and he agreed to throw in a replacement rolling screen unit from the same aisle, retail price $79. So together we slid the bulky 150-pound door unit off its shelf and onto our lumber cart. With the rest of the door now visible, I inspected it carefully for damage. Everything looked great (or at least patchable) until I noticed that the specialized bottom weatherstripping was missing from one of the door panels. This was non-standard stuff and would create more than $100 of hassle to replace, so I decided to call off the deal.
Normally at this point, I’d just place an order for a new-condition door with the millwork desk, but since I’m only in town for a few more days, and we had traveled over 10 miles in the construction van specifically to get an in-stock door, we decided to have another crack at finding something. Next stop: the competing Lowe’s just a mile down the road. Heading to the exterior doors department in Lowe’s, we found a much better scene.
Sliding Glass Doors Gliding Patio Doors. Installation Resources. View more Home Depot locations.
Similar doors at similar prices, but more of the “left hand inswings” in stock. But there was also this one door sitting all alone at the end of the line: As you can see from the picture, the whole top piece of that door’s jamb has come separated from the side piece.
Plus the packaging material is gone, it’s dirty, and it looks like bad news in general. But it had an intriguing feature that really appealed to GMM – internal blinds which are sealed between the two glass panels, meaning no need to buy separate blinds, easier operation and no cleaning. The door was also a better-known brand: Jeld-wen instead of Reliabuilt. I did a quick web search on my phone and learned that this particular model of door normally sells for $629. I was now ready to find a store employee and make my pitch. Step 2: Play the stores against each other: Not everyone knows this, but Lowe’s and Home Depot have a policy of always honoring each other’s coupons and matching prices. Got a 15% off coupon for HD?
It will work just as well at Lowe’s. Found a lower price on an identical item at Lowe’s? Take a picture and show it to HD, and see what they do. So I showed my 15% coupon for Home Depot to the department manager, and said this: “Would you be willing to sell us this damaged door on the end for $529, minus the 15% discount that HD is offering, with another $100 taken off for the damage?”. I made sure to ask the question in a buddy-buddy way rather than an entitled-customer way, adding that I would fully understand if he didn’t feel it was an appropriate deal for him. Without blinking, the guy said he would be happy to do so (I find that this happens almost every time, since these stores often have a hard time unloading damaged goods). From there, things got even better.
We started sliding the door out onto the cart. The thing about French doors is that they are heavy glass and steel units attached to a thin and flimsy wooden frame. Without the packaging materials, everything flops all over the place in a very frightening way.
Although GMM and I were cheerful and patient with the situation, the department manager became very apologetic upon seeing how “broken” the whole thing looked as we eased it on to the cart, and he offered additional discounts. In the end, he priced the door at $260, less than half of the regular price! On the way out, I happened to notice that both stores were offering “Professional Installation” of French doors for $650 – with a t0-be-determined additional surcharge for unusual situations such as older houses and brick construction. I mentally added that amount to our savings for the day.
The funny part of all of this was that the door system was in perfect condition from my perspective. When installing big doors like this, I always start by unpackaging them and removing both doors from their hinges anyway, allowing precise leveling and screwing of the frame without the heavy doors constantly swinging around and getting in the way.
So we rolled it out to the parking lot, took off the doors, pried apart the four pieces of wood that form the jamb, and laid everything into the back of my van for easy transportation. This provided additional time savings, since it normally takes some serious work (and two strong, tall people) to load a double door onto a roof rack and secure it for a long drive and then unload it at the other end. To make a long story short, I screwed the door frame together from the comfort of the back patio (10 minutes), painstakingly removed the old door system from the rough antique brick opening (1.5 hours), installed the new frame and doors and shimmed, screwed and sealed them in with spray-in foam insulation (1 hour).
Then I had to create customized uneven pieces of trim both inside and out to compensate for the fact that the old brick wall was crooked in both dimensions, while doors must always be installed absolutely straight, square, and level in all directions to allow proper operation (2 hours). Hmm, it looks like this post is morphing from a “shopping and negotiation tips” article into a “do-it-yourself-tips” article, so let’s finish it off with a few pictures of the actual door replacement process: How to replace a patio door in a brick wall: Step 1: carefully review your old door – measure the brick opening, the size of the doors, etc. Take off the interior trim and measure the frame in there. Buy a door to match the size, leaving at least 1/2″ of space on each side (most patio door sets are designed to fit within a 72″ x 80″ rough opening).
Here’s the rough opening after all traces of the old door were finally cleared out. Step 3: With the new doors removed from their hinges, place the new door into the opening.
For 2×4 wood construction walls, put the jamb flush with the interior drywall. For much thicker brick walls, use your imagination to decide how deeply to recess the door – you’ll be making your own trim to fill the gap anyway. Shim the bottom corners to make it perfectly level. Lock in the bottom corner with a nail or screw.
Work your way up, making the hinge-side of the door frame perfectly straight and level, adding shims and sturdy screws into the wood and brick. With door installation, the hinge side is everything. Then do the other hinge side. Perfectly straight and level. Now you can hang the door panels back onto their hinges, and shim and adjust the top and bottom jamb boards create a nice, uniform gap.
Nail and screw everything well. Check door operation. Here’s the new door. It will look better once it is painted the more subdued brown-grey colour to match the house, but you can use your imagination for now. Finishing Up: Add insulation around the doors, figure out your own trim details inside and out, then patch, caulk, and paint as you see fit.
In the end, we scored ourselves at least of $1300 of door and installation value (plus single-day installation), in exchange for just a bit of DIY and hack-the-system knowledge, and less than a day of fun work out in the fresh air for me – with a net out-of-pocket cost of $260. This is just another example of why I’m such an advocate of all homeowners learning basic renovation skills. You can specialize and justify the value of your rare brainpower all you like, but unless you have a way to make $1000 after tax in a single day of work*, it’s hard to beat the return-on-investment of a little knowhow in the area of maintaining your own house. * Actually, the equation is probably even more tilted in favor of do-it-yourself, because I have found that hiring a contractor, coordinating schedules, dealing with mistakes and mess, and other fussiness requires you to spend about 4-8 hours of your own personal time hiring out a job like this anyway. I have done several windows and single doors but never a double mostly because I haven’t had to and partly because of the need to have two people move it around. The first time I did each I was amazed at how simple it is – don’t get me wrong, I had to fuss with the door a bit to get it right so it took a bit longer than a pro but the next one was even easier.
My neighbor had to do his door and I was telling him it was fairly simple and offered to help if he wanted, he preferred to pay someone (I think $1100). Funny thing is I think it took me less time to do mine than the pros took to do his.
You are also spot on about time to deal with contractors. That is the main reason I started doing DIY, sure the savings are great but I found that whenever I was willing to pay somebody the time invested to source, bid, hire, and monitor was a signifcant amount of time that wasn’t that far off from doing it myself and many times there would still be mistakes. • July 2, 2012, 8:14 am. Ooh, great tips!
We are going to need to replace our back door eventually, and this will come in handy. And right now, my husband is building up our hall closet.
It was a “cubby” with a very-badly installed “arch” – in 1976, I guess someone really wanted our 1947 house to look like it was built in the 20’s. Anyway, he’s been busy removing an old pipe that was part of the old underhouse heating system, taking out the arch, framing the door, drywalling the interior and exterior, installing electrical and lighting (he’s going to put our WiFi/computer stuff on a shelf in there). Once the shelves are up: gonna have to buy and hang the doors. This will help us negotiate to find the bifold doors. • July 2, 2012, 10:12 am. How timely; we just had our balcony door replaced this weekend, since we own a home built before anything was standardized I pretty much have to contract out everything the first time around.
I used one of the most competent contractors I have ever met and one that I have used before. It took him 8 hours to replace the door he didn’t mess around a bit.
The sill had been roofed over 4 sheets thick, it had a non-standard rough opening, plus lathing and plaster walls on the inside and was in the sun on a 100 degree day; I am better off leaving that mess to the pros. • Jamesqf July 2, 2012, 11:37 am.
Pretty much how I replaced the mammoth (floor to ceiling, 11′ wide) single paned picture window in my living room. (Sans the haggling, which I dislike.) Found a customer returned window of about the size I wanted (about 8’x5′) with some minor cosmetic blemishes at HD (though I checked Lowe’s too, HD just had the best one), framed in the opening to the new size, and there I was – not to mention the 6 or 12 months of free interest on the HD card. And the original window? It’s now the sun-facing side of my neighbors’ greenhouse. • July 2, 2012, 1:13 pm.
I love to haggle. I think it has something to do with when I was young my Dad would take me to the flea market. I learned to haggle over silly things, like toys. And later I would haggle of bigger purchases too. I lived in Turkey for awhile and they haggle over everything. The price they tell you first is the “American price” if you pay it, they think you are stupid. I never paid it.
I actually earned respect from some of the Turkish people there. I met a few ladies who took me under their wing and showed me all the best places there.
I miss that sometimes. I think it’s just a culture thing really. Most Americans think that people are insulting them when they are haggling, but a lot of cultures if you don’t haggle then it’s assumed that you are stupid or lazy. • July 2, 2012, 11:58 am. We got ourselves all brand new Stainless Steel Samsung Appliances from Lowes in our kitchen this way. I would always send my wife to ask for the a greater discount The Managers were always willing to go lower for a pregnant women.: ) They were all either ding or dented or previous customer returns. We got the Fridge for 60% off, we got the stove 40% off and they were discountinuing the microwave over the stove but were out of stock.
So my wife asked what they could do. They sold us the new model at the close out price because they felt bad. We would just go one week and wait a week or two and go back and if it was still there my wife would say “this has been sitting here a while, would you discount it another $200 ror $300?” It took a couple months but it was worth the savings and we were in the midst of renovating our house anyways so it wasn’t a big sacrifice. • Jared Chmielecki July 2, 2012, 12:18 pm. My best home depot / lowes score was my front door! We had been putting off replacing it for ~2 years due to the high cost of a front door with 2 sidelights, and my sidelights were a less common size, meaning special order.
Long story short, I notice an odd sized door in the store and mention to my wife it looks like the 10″ instead fo 12″ sideligjts. I was sitting there at half price already.
The sales associate heard me and said, If you buy it now I will give it to you for $350. Thankyou 1k discount for procrastination! Had a similar discount happen for a custom order sized window, 94×57 rough opening. First time I got a price quote it was way out of line with the off the shelf window pricing. 2 years later, looking for a way to use multiple offf the sheelf windows to fill the gap, an associate quotes me a price about half of what it was the first time. He adjusted the width by 1/4″ so it was a standard size and it cut the price in half and mentioned that the previous quote must have been from someone who had no clue what they were doing. • July 2, 2012, 12:26 pm.
Hitting up yard sales over the years has given me the inclination to try for a discount on just about everything. The other day I was in the grocery store and saw a produce manager removing heads of cauliflower from the display. I asked if he planned to discount them and he marked them right down to about 15% of the regular price. Even my kids know to do it – I start them young. I think the main key is to always be very friendly, like you are just asking a favor with no expectancy. Excellent job on those doors! • Shandi76 July 3, 2012, 7:03 am.
Funnily enough, I am getting new French doors put in in a couple of weeks time. Unfortunately the opening is custom sized and the doors have to be custom made to order, meaning little room for haggling. The last time I tried haggling was when I bought a film SLR (can you tell it was a long time ago) in cash.
Somehow I managed to get talked into a £20 discount and a free flash (that I didn’t really need) if I signed up to some stupid extended warranty scheme that cost more than the discount:-/ • Megan July 3, 2012, 9:16 am. I believe from reading MMM’s past posts, the best way is to either (1) go to the library and study books on how to do or (2) offer to assist someone (prob for free) who is better than you and soak up the knowledge or (3) combination of these Personally, I like to carefully study and read books from the library first, get the tools, and then just go right into it; also sometimes you can watch video online, i.e. My house is located 1 mile from Home Depot, with a Lowe’s literally right next to it. Harbor freight is 2.5 miles from my house in the other direction. I’ve gotten many loads of material in my bike trailer, and even got everything for my attic insulation in a small rental car (pre-bike trailer days). The U-Haul van rental was also within 3 miles, so same day rental was pretty cheap and less expensive than maintaining my own van/truck for the once a year a may need one.
Unfortunately I didn’t find this article to bolster my resolve to install my own french doors early enough. We spent $1200 and 3 months with the contractor, who took a week to install it. Granted it was a bit more complicated, including complete removal of the siding, 3″ of material from the wall because I didn’t buy the right size door, and an extra expense of buying a new window because the old door has one built in. I learned a lot in the experience by helping out, but wish I would have just done it myself.
Expensive lesson. I keep thinking that for the $1200 I could have bought the tools which I didn’t have that were needed for this job. Oh well, the patio looks so much better now. • Anna October 27, 2012, 12:13 pm. Awsome site, just found it today! I wanted to add another home improvement tip for you.
It is amazing how much a little paint can add to the beauty of a home, and also add the value of protection of elements. Miss tint paint is my new thing!
My parents have a 2500 square foot home and a detached 2 car garage. I was able to find 10 gallons of off white high quality exterior paint for 2 bucks a gallon. Mom was instant on sunny yellow with white trim so i bought 1 gallon of the same quality of yellow paint to mix in a shade that she liked at a cost of 60 bucks. It would have cost us several hundred dollars to paint but we are painting their house for less than $100. The cost of grilling hotdogs and chicken (they raise their own) was also a minimal expense for labor. We invited the youth group from their church to come and help paint and we were able to complete the whole thing in a weekend, including 2 coats of paint!
It is important to note that walmart home depot ect only discount misstints about 50% but ben Moore ect charge roughly 2-5$ per gallon. You may have to mix a few colors to have enough but I have been able to redecorate my own home and just a whim with misstints! • June 15, 2016, 12:25 am. I know I’m late to this party, but I’d like to make a few comments too! I can’t say enough about attitude when asking for a discount.
Act like an entitled jerk, and suddenly no one has authority to change the price. Use appropriate grammer. Say please and thank you. Possible most importantly, once they say Ok, shut the hell up! You’ve already got what you want. Devexpress Download Full Installer more. Any more talking about it can only irritate them, alienate them or make them regret the decision, making it harder for you next time. Also, keep your voice down.
Most managers just want to get through their day and go home. If you’re noisy, everyone in the store may suddenly become mustachian without our politeness. They won’t be impressed – and they may remember you next week when you’re asking for another discount. Some of you are also saying you’re scared to fix something – you may mess it up. If it needs fixing, it’s already messed up! For larger projects (electrical, plumbing, exterior doors, etc) if you do it at the beginning of time off (like a vacation) you still have time to get a professional to come fix it for you if you can’t pull it off, and unless you’re removing load bearing walls, it’s unlikely you’ll do any serious damage. So worst case scenario, you gained valuable experience and had to pay the pro you were going to pay anyhow.
Lastly, for experience – anytime you pay someone to do something for you, watch what they do, and ask questions. Now you have some experience. • Sylvie from Montreal March 6, 2017, 7:00 pm. Awesome advice. I didn’t know that Lowes would honor Home Depots coupons.
We don’t have a Lowes that’s close to us, but still. We usually try to find what we need at a habitat restore. Used stuff for WAY cheaper. They are in most major cities now too. Ours is about 30 minutes away, so we only go when we have other business in town. Also, you never know what you are going to find there.
Speaking of which I should probably go and get some doors for my basement soon. All I need now is to learn how to put up ventilation systems in the basement (not that we use it that often) and then finish getting the drywall up.
We bought this house for a deal because it wasn’t “finished”. We thought it would be a great way to customize our house.
• Thea July 2, 2016, 8:20 am. I will be checking out the door brand mentioned in this post but am looking for other brands to compare. I have shallow eaves, live in N Cal where there can be driving rain and with a south facing aspect, direct sun that makes it too hot for wimpy me to sit on the deck. I had French doors put in place of windows, they leaked and warped the wood floor. I had fiber glass clad slider put in but it let water into the trough and I don’t know where else so the bottom wood panel on the inside side of the fixed panel rotted.
I did a hasty caulk job, where I don’t think I was supposed to have to, in order to at least slow down the degradation until I decide what to do (so far it’s been a couple of years of trying to decide.) • Beverly November 3, 2016, 6:56 am. These savings can be upped even more! Take your cash back credit card and go onto one of the very reliable websites that sells printable gift cards at a discount.
Your cash back can vary, depending on the credit card, and then if you shop the gift card websites against each other (giftcardgranny will do a comparison of prices for you), you can get the best deal. I’ve also bought gift cards on e-bay from private sellers, who usually have a harder time unloading large value gift cards, and when you pay with your credit card you will have buyer protection. If you are a frequent shopper at any particular store, it benefits you to buy the gift cards in advance, when they go on sale. I have very frequently gotten Home Depot, Lowe’s or Whole Foods at 10-15% off, and then saved them for the future, when they have something on sale or there are damaged goods, plus I have a coupon, plus the gift card savings, plus the cash back saving.
If you can develop a ‘stash of discounts you buy at big discounts, you can do most of your shopping that way. The only thing I have found that you lose is the ability to do a Visa/MC dispute if needed, because the credit card was used for the gift card and not the product. • Ray in Dublin June 2, 2017, 2:56 am.
Has anyone replaced their sliding glass patio door. We need to place out door, it appears the wood has started to rot and the door has expanded and won't shut all the way. My DH isn't handy so we are looking at hiring someone. Anyone have experience on how much this should cost? The local Home depot said $39 to measure the door, $84 to deliever and install starting at $459. Plus it would take 2 weeks to get the door in store.
Anyone replace on on their own? Was it difficult? My husband is a 'it's good enough', it's close enough to being level'. So, I don't want half *** work! Anyone order a door for a direct ship from a store (online)? We are looking for a cheaper door, since we are not going to live there for the long haul.
Has anyone replaced their sliding glass patio door. We need to place out door, it appears the wood has started to rot and the door has expanded and won't shut all the way. My DH isn't handy so we are looking at hiring someone. Anyone have experience on how much this should cost? The local Home depot said $39 to measure the door, $84 to deliever and install starting at $459. Plus it would take 2 weeks to get the door in store.
Anyone replace on on their own? Was it difficult? My husband is a 'it's good enough', it's close enough to being level'. So, I don't want half *** work! Anyone order a door for a direct ship from a store (online)? We are looking for a cheaper door, since we are not going to live there for the long haul. Click to expand.Us, 3 years ago.
But I'm probably not much help as we hired an installer. I know it's VERY important that everything is level in the frame,etc and it had to be shimmed and adjusted quite a lot before it was completely installed. We also upgraded our door with screens and other options and spent about $1600 total. (I know you can spend a lot less and a lot more.) I would hire someone, unless your husband can get some assistance from someone knowledgeable. It didn't seem to be a one person job, with the size of the door.
Three guys worked on ours, especially when it came to placing it in the opening, my son was a fourth. I built my house so i can't tell you how hard it would be for him but i would find the door your like, buy it and then wait until winter time hits to get labor estimates. Builders and handymen are typically desperate for work over the winter months so they do give better prices. If the building is sound (no rotten wood) then replacing an exterior door is not bad but you do typically find rotten sills and so on. So i would say it is moderate for somebody who regularly works on their house. If you have money then get it done by a professional, if you are strapped for cash then give it a try. He should try to watch every utube video he can find.
It is a two person job, i have done it by myself and it was tough. Those doors are heavy.
Also a good time to change the sliding door to a french door or what ever. Click to expand.We have an atrium door versus a french door. Atrium only one opens versus french both open.
I have to say I disagree. It depends on your set up. We have the atrium door from the eating area of the kitchen to our patio and with the way the patio is the door must swing open into the house which means you have to make sure and leave tons of clearance. We need to replace our door because the seal between the two panes of glass is broken so there is moisture between the glass. We are replacing the french door with a nice vinyl slider. Sliders now adays are so much nice than years ago!!! I am looking forward to not having to worry about a kitchen chair being in the way of the door opening.
Our eating area is very substantial but we have rollers on those chairs and it will just be nice to not have to worry about the door clearing or bumping anything. OP, I wouldn't rule out a nice slider if that's what 'YOU' like! There are lots of choices out there!
Do a bit of research though and be sure to get something that won't rust or rot like vinyl. And as far as installation. DH and a friend of his will be putting ours in. His friend is a licensed contractor and does this for a living. DH helped him with some work last year so this is our return favor. We just have to buy the door. The labor will be free.
I love it when DH barters his services for stuff we need!!! I would have an installer do the work. One they do this for a living and will take them a lot less time than someone who has never done it. Plus if something goes wrong their works is has a warrentee. Lowes is running a special till the end of May depending on how much you spend. They will give you money back in the form of a gift card. We had our front door replaced at our other house and the installer had the project done in 2 hours.
Dont forget that $35 measurement fee is then refunded once you purchase the door. Both HD and Lowes charge the measurement fee and then refund it to you. We just replaced four sets of french doors with sliding doors.
We had wood french doors and we had some rotting on a couple of them. We searched forever (it seems) to find the best deal because we had so many.
We ended up going with Window World and for four sets with the highest level of low-E glass that they offer, installed was just around $4000. We could have gotten the plain glass for right around $3000, but we decided that we'd rather go with what we really wanted instead of what was cheapest. It took about 4 weeks to order them, but only took one day to install and they were great! Very clean and friendly. We would never have thought about installing them ourselves.
It just seemed like too big a job for us. We've only ever done small jobs around the house.
Click to expand.It must not have been an Anderson Door. If the outside of the wood door was properly sealed and engineered then it would not be exposed to moisture that rots the wood. My Anderson slider is used daily and it takes 1 hand to open and close the door. The wheels are independently adjustable and even with being 20 years old I can still order parts for it. If you can adjust the door enough to account for the house settling, you ether had crappy design door or your house has structural issues or you had sill plate rot. There is a reason why Anderson Windows and Door last as long as they do. Also look into the warrenty for the replacement W/D.
Andersons are 10 years on the glass and 20 on everything else, transfer owner 2 owner and are NOT prorated. So after 9 years, the seal between the glass pains breaks, you get new glass or 19 years and 11 months the lock breaks, you get a new lock. Make sure you get a experienced person to put in your door. The best way is to ask for personal referrals. If you are flexible with your dates, it helps with getting a better quality install. Noticed I said quality install and not cost.
When the installer is not rushed, they take their time and do it right instead of rushing thru your job to get to the other jobs. As with most things in a house, pay a little bit more now or a lot more later. It must not have been an Anderson Door. If the outside of the wood door was properly sealed and engineered then it would not be exposed to moisture that rots the wood. My Anderson slider is used daily and it takes 1 hand to open and close the door.
The wheels are independently adjustable and even with being 20 years old I can still order parts for it. If you can adjust the door enough to account for the house settling, you ether had crappy design door or your house has structural issues or you had sill plate rot. There is a reason why Anderson Windows and Door last as long as they do. Also look into the warrenty for the replacement W/D. Andersons are 10 years on the glass and 20 on everything else, transfer owner 2 owner and are NOT prorated.
So after 9 years, the seal between the glass pains breaks, you get new glass or 19 years and 11 months the lock breaks, you get a new lock. Make sure you get a experienced person to put in your door. The best way is to ask for personal referrals. If you are flexible with your dates, it helps with getting a better quality install. Noticed I said quality install and not cost.
When the installer is not rushed, they take their time and do it right instead of rushing thru your job to get to the other jobs. As with most things in a house, pay a little bit more now or a lot more later. Click to expand.I do not want to debate Anderson as it is a good builder quality product however by far not the best when compared to high end products. Wood expands and contracts and over time will warp, crack and no longer seal correctly causing rot. A product such as JELD-WEN makes doors that look exactly like wood out of fiberglass that will last a very very long time. However they cost easily 4 times more then Anderson. However you if you go with a plain fiberglass door you will have the same benefits with a much lower price just not the look of wood.
I had Anderson windows on my house and trust me after 20-25 years they no longer seal. But again that is expected from real wood anything.
We are in the midst of replacing our patio doors due to the first ones rotting out. Our house was built in 2001. Turns out two of our neighbors are also replacing theirs due to rotting.
We had three different builders and installed three different company's doors. The problem seems to be how the siding was installed originally. Of course, our insurance says this is not covered. We bought a door and my husband and his brother installed and took it out three different times (three solid days work). They have both built houses.
Turns out the door seems to be defective, the company said they would 'file a claim' but have not sent anyone out to look at it. We had the store pick it up today and hopefully we will get our money back. Home Depot came out yesterday to measure and quote a price. Anderson double patio doors (no screen), installed, and with the repairs of the siding above it so we don't have the problem again will cost just over $5,000. After all the hassle - these doors weigh a ton - we will probably go with that even though the front of our house is now boarded up and will stay that way until they are able to bring the new one - 4-6 weeks.
This is not a 'do-it-yourself' job because of the weight of the doors and everything has to be level. READ the reviews on the company that will be doing the work.
Turns out the first door we bought has terrible reviews and the company pretty much doesn't warranty anything because they blame it on the 'install'. I had mine replaced while the rest of the house was being resided so I don't remember how much it cost (my guess is about $2000 ish as I went with a more high end door and paid for installation).
It was a 2 handed, use your muscles job to open the old door, the new one slides open with a few fingers!! I do know that they had to take off the molding INSIDE the house to install the new door and even the professionals didn't get it put back perfectly, so if that is important to you, you may want to discourage your husband, lol.