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Heavy rains from Hurricane Henri happened overnight. In the morning, I noticed the bottom of the door moulding on the inside was wet. How do I prevent water coming in from the exterior of my front door?

Some ideas:

Replace weather stripping?
Replace door sweep?
Replace the piece under the door?
Replace any of the door?
Replace all of the door? Sand/Prime/Paint the exterior trim?
Caulk everywhere?
Install a storm door?

It is the same door featured in this question

Update: I followed the steps listed in MonkeyZeus’s answer as seen in this video. In addition I adjusted the doorknob lock-catch to bring the doors in tighter against the weatherstripping. I also replaced the door bottom because the previous was cracked, chipped, and missing chunks in places.

Result: After weathering a few inches of rain from the remnants of Hurricane Ida over Southern New Jersey, the inside was bone dry. Problem solved!

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FrancisJohn
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    I can see daylight through the door in the first picture, start with sealing that tight. – dandavis Aug 25 '21 at 05:28
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    The corner seal is missing where daylight is visible. It is a vinyl covered foam wedge that should be on the lower jamb where you can see the residue of adhesive. I would add a nice full glass storm door to stop drafts and leaks. – Kris Aug 25 '21 at 12:23
  • @Kris would both bottom corners of the door need one? – FrancisJohn Aug 25 '21 at 12:27
  • Yes both sides should have one – Kris Aug 25 '21 at 12:37
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    As addressed in Freeman’s answer Poor door fitting against weatherstripping can be difficult to remedy. Also you should be sure the bottom of door is sealing well against threshold. Some thresholds are adjustable. – Kris Aug 25 '21 at 12:43
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    A storm door would help, but weatherstripping would be a better first step, much less expensive, and necessary either way. – FreeMan Aug 25 '21 at 13:00
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    Looking at the first picture, I don't see any way the water came through the door. It would have to have somehow defied gravity as it crept around the corner and then somehow got behind the paint. I'd look above the door on the outside for leaks. If you have water coming in above a door, it will tend to run down the side(s) of the door frame and cause the exact kind of damage you see there. – JimmyJames Aug 25 '21 at 21:18
  • @JimmyJames I’ll take a look at that too. – FrancisJohn Aug 25 '21 at 21:23
  • @JimmyJames I took a look, and didn’t find anything that fits this description. It was a good idea though. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:20
  • @JimmyJames The bottom of trim molding is usually exposed. A carpenter won't paint this for you unless you explicitly asked and it's in the quote. The water got in the house, sat on the floor, and was absorbed by the molding which is clearly evident by the swelling. – MonkeyZeus Aug 27 '21 at 15:32
  • @MonkeyZeus There's no way a piece of dry wood would wick up that much water overnight. The OP also never mentioned water on the floor or floor damage. I've got a very similar situation on an exterior door and it is 100% due to water coming in from above the door on the outside. I don't know why you think this isn't possible. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 15:44
  • @FrancisJohn After the storm, did you have water on the floor? Was that floor mat/rug wet? Is there floor damage? – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 15:47
  • @JimmyJames no, just the molding. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:48
  • @JimmyJames Just because it's not in the question doesn't mean it's absent. It could have easily dried up by the time OP took the picture. Based on the swelling it is likely MDF anyways and will never recover to it's original size. – MonkeyZeus Aug 27 '21 at 15:48
  • @MonkeyZeus there is also a chance that this has been a gradual problem that I’ve never noticed before. After this heavy rain was the first time I noticed it. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:49
  • @MonkeyZeus Right which is completely consistent with water behind it. Carpenters often don't seal the back of trim either. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 15:49
  • @JimmyJames I just uploaded two more pics. One of the entire front trim and the other closeup of the small ledge above the door. I’d say the seals look good enough at the top and at the sides, and the actual threshold seems setback enough. Not that I’m a professional, but I think replacing the weatherstripping and adding the bottom corner foam wedges with sealant should be enough here I hope. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:54
  • @MonkeyZeus So the theory is that there was enough water on the floor for the door trim to wick it up but all of that water was dried from the rug and floor overnight but only the door molding was absorbing water, not the adjacent molding? – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 15:56
  • @FrancisJohn I hope you are right. As MonkeyZeus point out, that trim is fubared now and needs to be replaced. If/when you pull it down, I would inspect it and the cavity behind it for signs of water. I've seen water run straight through a door frame from above and out the ceiling below. You could have something like this as a result of a roof leak. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 16:01
  • @JimmyJames That's a question partially for OP; they'll have to confirm/deny additional damage. Floor molding tends to be at least primed on 3 sides; ditto for the shoe molding. Either of these could be solid wood instead of MDF so the swelling would be less prominent. Additionally, the shoe molding would act a first line of defense for the floor molding. If the water was coming in from the back side then it would have swollen the floor molding due to the unprimed 4th face, no? – MonkeyZeus Aug 27 '21 at 16:02
  • @MonkeyZeus "then it would have swollen the floor molding, no?" Not necessarily. When a door frame is installed, I'm sure you know there's a gap between the studs and the frame that needs to be shimmed. That can be a conduit for water that probably terminates at the bottom of the door frame. I doubt this happened overnight as well. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 16:05
  • @JimmyJames the most prominent damage was the vertical trim on the interior side of the door. If I had to guess, I think it water was hitting the exterior front of the door, rolling down, and pooling in the corners. Due to the lack of the wedge backing and proper sealant, the weatherstripping and rain protection was comprised in the corners and made its way into the house at the bottom corners of the frame. From there it was absorbed by the interior trim. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 16:08
  • Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been [moved to chat](https://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/129065/discussion-on-question-by-francisjohn-how-do-i-prevent-exterior-water-from-seepi). – BMitch Aug 29 '21 at 15:47

5 Answers5

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Those bottom corners are the only problematic locations, right?

Referring to Page #7 of these Jeld-Wen installation Instructions which I recently followed.

enter image description here

  1. You are missing the foam wedges
    • Go to the millwork desk of your local big box home improvement store and ask if they have any extra they could give you. I'm sure Amazon carries them as well.
  2. It looks like no sealant was used
    • Clean up the area nicely and apply some fresh silicone or OSI Quad Max and let it cure

After addressing these two issues you might find that the water issue has been solved. If not then replacing the weather-stripping is a good next step.

"How do I test for water infiltration?" you ask?

Well it's quite complicated but do you have a garden hose with a "shower" setting nearby? =)

If the weather-stripping doesn't solve the issue then look into high quality storm doors like an Anderson 3000 series storm door.

Albeit, I would suggest a storm door regardless.

Messing around with the jamb or threshold will quickly amass into a time-consuming, gigantic, and potentially expensive headache so I would consider this to be the "nuclear" option.

MonkeyZeus
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  • The previous owners did leave a storm door, but I’m not sure if they left the mounting brackets somewhere. I’d have to go digging to find it. – FrancisJohn Aug 25 '21 at 19:24
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    If you find it then make sure to inspect it well. There must have been a reason they removed it. – MonkeyZeus Aug 25 '21 at 19:28
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    @MonkeyZeus, though that reason might have been as simple as "the hinges keep snagging on the furniture we're carrying out to the truck". – Mark Aug 26 '21 at 00:13
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    Hey @MonkeyZeus here’s the fix: https://youtube.com/shorts/PfWrtFq8R8o?feature=share – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:21
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    @FrancisJohn Hah, I love it! It's a bit surreal to see your post in video form. How did the water sealing work out for you? Did you use my highly technical water hose test? =) – MonkeyZeus Aug 27 '21 at 15:26
  • @MonkeyZeus I’m scared to do the hose test! We are supposed to get some more decent rainfall this weekend. I’ll update only if there’s a problem. Otherwise we can consider no news to be good news. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 15:29
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    @FrancisJohn Well you're not supposed to aim it full blast directly at your problem area in hopes of intentionally breaking your defense. Just a gentle shower on your entire door for 10-20 seconds should suffice. It's better to know you have an issue now rather than during the next rain storm! – MonkeyZeus Aug 27 '21 at 15:34
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You'll need to look straight on at the gaps around the door (top and sides) - any place you see daylight (like the bottom left corner in the first picture) will need to have the weather stripping replaced. Usually, this means replacing the weather stripping along that entire side - to my knowledge, piecing it together along one side probably isn't the best bet. If you have to replace some (and you do), you may as well replace it all. It probably won't cost must more to get a kit for the whole door than it would for one piece.

If brand new weather strip still doesn't prevent light coming through, you'll need either thicker weather stripping (to span the larger gap), or you'll need to adjust the door in its mount to better center it (that would be a whole new question here, feel free to ask it if you need to).

If there is light coming through between the wooden trim and the frame (i.e. not through the door opening itself), then you will need to apply caulk. A good quality exterior grade caulk would be appropriate. You might get one in a matching color, or you might get a good paintable caulk and choose to do some touch-up painting. You'll probably want to recaulk around the entire opening because "touching up" caulk is difficult to do and get it looking good, especially right there at the front door where all your house guests will see it. You'll want to do all the appropriate prep work for caulking as well - you should be able to find several good questions about that here, if not, we certainly need one!

If you see light at the bottom between the door and the threshold, you might be able to adjust the threshold, but I don't think yours is an adjustable one. Instead, you'd want to replace the door sweep on the bottom. The temptation would be to go with a big, thick, beefy one thinking "this will fill that gap!" but if it's too thick, it'll fill the gap so well your front door won't close. You will probably need to take the door off the hinges to get at the sweep at the bottom, so choose a day when it's not raining, or at least, not blowing in the front door.

Once you fix the seals around the door, then it won't get into the house to attack the moldings. Fixing up the current water damage would be grounds for a search here for additional info and maybe even another question.

FreeMan
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Front porch?

Your front door seems pretty exposed. And your yard looks nice. You could put a front porch in front of your house. The porch would blunt the force of incoming weather. You could enclose it in screens, although just a roof would prevent a lot of direct assault by wind and rain.

It is kind of an expensive fix for a leaky front door. But when you are done you could sit on your front porch and take in the autumn.

Willk
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One alternative is to replace the wood that could be exposed to water. They make 100% vinyl trim that will not wick water.

I tend to agree with Willk that water is driving up against your door, which is your root issue. If an awning is not an option, a cheaper alternative could be a rain diverter or limited gutters to help channel the water away from the door.

Machavity
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I just saw the updated picture of the door from the outside and instead of continuing to add more comments, I see something of concern, related to water infiltration from above the door.

enter image description here

It's hard to tell for sure from that angle, but it sure looks like you have a big flat area above the door with no obvious drainage path. It could be a camera distortion but it even looks like it's concave towards the middle of the door. And if that angles backwards toward the building, that's an uh-oh in my book. I also see a little damage underneath the crown molding there.

If I were you, I'd get on a ladder and pour a little water where the arrow is pointed and see where it goes. If it just sits there or drains into the woodwork, you've got an issue.

The gap in the door needed to be addressed as well so I'm not contradicting the accepted answer. You just might have more than one issue here.

Addendum: Here's an example of something you could use to address this:

enter image description here

This is from here (pricey!) but you could find other more cost-effective options. Just make sure it's meant for outdoor applications and is sealed really well. Where I live, we have a lot of snow and rain to worry about so having any sort of flat surface like this that's exposed to the elements would require a waterproof membrane at the very least. I see some cracks that have been filled in there which suggests that there's been an issue at some point. The repairs might help but I would expect them to fail before long.

http://www.wholesalemillwork.com/moldings/pht500/mld734x12.jpg

JimmyJames
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  • That damage is because of faulty paint work, seen in this question here: https://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/228986/any-tips-for-refinishing-the-exterior-trim-around-my-front-door When they did that work, they installed an aluminum panel that covered any cracks there, caulked all around, and made sure it was angled forward. The rest of that paint job was shoddy, but I did inspect that aspect of it. As for the curvature, that could have been there for awhile. The house is about 11 years old, but I’ve only owned it for two and a half. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 17:55
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    @FrancisJohn Even if there's a slight angle, if you have driving rain against the house, you could still have issues there. I would expect to see a piece of metal that curves up and attaches to the vertical surface. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 18:03
  • I just took a picture and edited the OP. It doesn’t look like water can find it’s way through, but it definitely looks like I can do a much better job up there. To be fixed next week! – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 18:39
  • @FrancisJohn That looks pretty rough to me. I updated the answer a bit. – JimmyJames Aug 27 '21 at 19:28
  • when I moved in there was standing by water up there, but no leaks. I’ll have to address this for sure. – FrancisJohn Aug 27 '21 at 19:39