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SheenPSU OP t1_ivo83ph wrote

Alright, elections over, back to our normal sub activities

How would you insulate these French doors? The draft is wicked bad and my thought, as of now, is to tape foam along the seams on the outside of the door but wanted to see if I could crowd source some better ideas.

I like the look of them and thinking taping foam (think of those strips you’d put in your window with an AC unit) on the outside will still make it look nice since we’re not really gonna use the deck in the winter so it’d be out of sight, out of mind

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tuctrohs t1_ivodok0 wrote

3M makes an outdoor rated blue painters tape made of plastic. So it's pretty weatherproof, but still peels off easily. If you're looking for something to tape up all of the cracks from the outside, and removing the spring that might work. No guarantee that it will come off without damaging paint but it seems pretty likely as long as you don't peel it off while it's still too cold for that to work well.

But you'll still be losing a lot of heat through the glass, and having more layers with airspace between them will really help so putting a plastic shrink film over the whole inside will also help.

You could also think about replacing it with a single regular door with a side lite next to it. We replaced our 6ft sliding glass patio door with a 2.5 ft square window above a regular insulated wall section for 1/2, and then a 3 ft wide regular door, with a triple-pane window in it, for the other half. It looks great and the space inside of there is much warmer than it used to be.

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bonez3113 t1_ivo9v74 wrote

Curious to know too. Gotta do some insulating myself. I assume you would want a more permanent solution. Probably an adhesive with a small barrier to fill the gap

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mattyman87 t1_ivoth0j wrote

Another way to look at this, is the only reason cold air is coming in through the door is because warm air is escaping out the top of the house somewhere. Hire a pro or learn up and DIY a Blower door test to negatively depressurize the house and then point an IR camera around should help you find those air leaks and many can be plugged with a simple can of spray foam.

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AngryDog69 t1_ivp9zvv wrote

Are they intended for external use? They look like interior grade doors.

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SheenPSU OP t1_ivpax3t wrote

I’ll be honest I have zero clue. Bought the house last year and I never thought to ask

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