How to insulate an iron Chinese front door

How to insulate Chinese doors made of metal is of interest to many, since these entrance doors are very popular due to their relatively low cost. Such doors are hollow inside, that is, they are not equipped with a layer of factory insulation. The most common types of Chinese doors:

• detachable, the inner lining of which is attached to the frame with self-tapping screws or is completely absent;
• one-piece, the frame and metal sheathing are connected by welding.

Types and design features of Chinese entrance doors

Distinctive features of Chinese-made entrance doors are the small thickness of the metal used and the absence of any insulation inside. Iron does not have thermal insulation properties, therefore, it necessarily requires additional insulation. It is not in the Chinese version. In this regard, when buying, immediately think over a further increase in thermal insulation.

Cheap doors usually need insulation immediately after purchase.

There are two types of Chinese metal doors:

• one-piece type - in them the metal layer (sheathing) is connected to the frame by welding;
• detachable type - fastening the frame and sheathing, if it is done, then with self-tapping screws. This design will not cause any particular difficulties during insulation work.

Output

Warming a Chinese door made of metal is a process that will help to significantly improve the performance of such a product. Since the majority of Chinese manufacturers do not pay special attention to the insulation of the door leaf from heat loss, the insulation can be safely called mandatory for every person who has chosen such a leaf for himself.

After thermal insulation, even Chinese doors will help to retain heat in the house, creating optimal conditions for a comfortable stay. If in the course of the insulation you have any questions, you can always watch the video in this article, where everything is shown quite easily and clearly.

The iron door serves not only as a reliable protection against the penetration of unauthorized persons into the apartment, but also prevents the penetration of the flow of cold air and noise. The ideal option is an iron door, which already includes material for insulation.

However, there are times when inexperienced buyers purchase a structure with a poor insulation system, or they specifically buy such a door in order to save financial resources. In such a situation, you need to insulate the door yourself.

In this article, we will tell you how to insulate an iron front door with your own hands, consider the option of a Chinese door, and also give a photo and video instruction.

Possible insulation options

The choice of material is an important point in improving thermal insulation. Do not forget that insulation is directly related to the quality, strength and performance of the material. The higher the numbers, the warmer and quieter your apartment.

Ordinary cotton wool is the most unsuccessful and rarely used insulation option. It's environmentally friendly, affordable in terms of price and delivery. However, in turn, it has great disadvantages - it is afraid of moisture, quickly absorbs water particles from the atmosphere and combustible.

Mineral wool insulation - needs additional waterproofing

Minvata, its varieties - the owner of high insulating performance, environmentally friendly material. However, it requires additional waste on the waterproofing layer.The hygroscopic structure facilitates the absorption of moisture from the outside.

Polyfoam, polystyrene foam, polystyrene foam - they are lightweight, have high technical characteristics and will reliably serve for many years. The best options as insulation, hydro and sound insulator. In addition, they are affordable and are not afraid of high humidity. They will last for more than a dozen years. The only negative is that it undergoes mechanical damage, the structure is broken and can crumble. Therefore, it is recommended to close the seal from above with a layer of hardboard or MDF panel.

How to insulate a door in an apartment quickly and efficiently

In apartments, doors are not exposed to weather conditions and sharp temperature fluctuations, so the main problem is the through wind that blows through the cracks. One method of eliminating draft is to install tight-fitting double doors. You can use a more economical way and just stick the foam rubber or silicone seal around the perimeter. The material is sold in hardware and hardware stores.

To insulate the front door to the apartment, you can use a foam rubber seal

Sequencing:

• First, you need to measure the gap between the door and the frame in order to buy insulation of the required thickness;
• Then the seal is glued around the perimeter or pressed into a special groove.

If the seal is chosen incorrectly, then the door will close with great difficulty or will not close at all, and the locks and handles will quickly become unusable from increased loads.

Outside, the doors in the apartments are upholstered with vinyl leather, leatherette or natural leather, pre-insulated with foam rubber or batting. Having retreated from the edge of the door leaf about 5 millimeters, the material is nailed. This should be done with special studs with a wide head or a construction stapler. On the sides, you can decorate with a wide strip of leather or leatherette. The interior of the doors in apartments is usually not insulated.

One-piece door insulation technology

There are several ways to improve the thermal insulation properties of a one-piece door type:

• Internal filling with liquid insulation is a great option, but keep in mind that with leaking seams, this material will be outside. The appearance at the door will spoil a little, and in this case it is impossible to guarantee the absence of voids inside. There is nothing complicated - just the inner cavity is filled with material;
• one-piece door can be insulated by attaching the insulation to the surface of the case on the inside. Of course, the appearance of the door from the inside will change, it will become many times thicker, but also warmer.

Expanded polystyrene is an excellent insulation option

The insulation technique consists in the following sequence of actions:

1. Remove the hardware from the inner surface.
2. Fasten wooden planks around the perimeter of the door with metal screws. The thickness of the plank is identical to the thickness of the selected foam, and the width is 25-30 mm.
3. Pre-punch holes in the metal. They should be slightly smaller in diameter than the diameter of the fastening screws.
4. Screw in the screws, pushing them in a little. Grind the screw-in places with sandpaper, putty and paint over with enamel. This will prevent corrosion.
5. Place the foam sheets in the resulting space.
6. From above, close the insulation around the entire perimeter with a solid sheet of plexiglass, MDF plywood.
7. Install new fittings according to the changed dimensions.
8. Correct the slopes around the door frame if necessary.

Insulation of a metal door

What to do with a one-piece canvas?

Of course, it would be nice if the Chinese-made iron door was initially insulated.Since this makes the final product more expensive, it is customary for us to take the economy version and improve it according to our abilities. In the case when the entrance door structure has one-piece panels, you need to get ready to change the inner appearance of the canvas and make a new overlay. But first things first:

1. The door completely gets rid of the fittings located on the inside.
2. An additional frame is made, as in the photo. For this, wooden strips are fixed along the entire inner contour of the canvas with self-tapping screws for metal, the width of which should be similar to the width of the insulation. It will be better if the holes for the self-tapping screws are prepared in advance in the metal base, and their diameter is slightly smaller than the circumference of the fasteners themselves. At this stage, it is recommended to fasten several transverse slats, and all wooden elements should be pulled as tightly as possible to the metal base.
3. Self-tapping screws must be screwed in with a recess in the wood, the fixation points must be sealed with wood putty, after which all wooden parts must be painted or varnished.
4. Then the Chinese door is filled with the selected insulation, which it is desirable not only to press well and squeeze into the newly created frame, but also to fix it with glue like "Dragon".
5. All this is covered with a sheet of fiberboard of the required dimensions, which, again, is attached with self-tapping screws or even nails to wooden planks.
6. Foam rubber is applied on top, on which high-quality leatherette is stretched. The latter is attached with specific studs with decorative or hidden caps. The whole process can be tracked in more detail in the video.
7. Since after such insulation of the door leaf it becomes much wider, it is important to buy the appropriate fittings.

At the final stage, it is important to fill with polyurethane foam all cavities and gaps found between the box and the wall. After it dries, everything is unnecessarily cut off with a sharp clerical knife, and the junction is sealed with putty or cement.

Alternative ways

If you decide to protect a private house with a Chinese door, try to make sure that all its seams are tight. Then it will be possible to insulate the structure by filling the internal cavities with vermiculite or perlite.

Related article: Window casters: DIY making
And one more thing: do not rush to get rid of the ancient entrance canvas. Try living with two doors with an air cushion between them. She has excellent sound and heat insulating abilities, and is quite capable of replacing the hundredth with her own hand insulation and keep the metal sheet from freezing.

The procedure for insulating a split door

The principle of insulation, sound insulation of a split-type door is identical to a one-piece door. But first remove the metal sheathing. There are stiffeners inside the structure, and lay the insulation in them.

Advice. For the convenience of subsequent work, the sheet of insulation can be attached to the metal using "liquid nails".

When the interior is completely filled with foam, instead of metal sheathing, use the same size MDF or hardboard panel. You can attach them using self-tapping screws along the entire perimeter.

Fix several self-tapping screws on the stiffeners (3-4 screws along the entire length of the rib). If it is impossible to fix on the edge itself, use the corners pre-attached to them.

Insulation of a metal door with foam

Materials required for work

The role of the base of the door structure is played by a metal frame made of any profile material, sheathed from the outside with an iron sheet. Doors of this kind can guarantee protection against burglaries, but they will not be able to protect your home from cold air currents and extraneous sounds.

To insulate an iron door, it is worth making a choice in favor of foam panels, the thickness of which is equal to the width of the frame profile. In addition to the panels themselves, you need to purchase additional materials:

• sealing foam rubber on a self-adhesive base;
• sandpaper;
• adhesive tape;
• wood fiber boards;
• sealant.

You will also need the following tools to get the job done:

• jigsaw;
• electric drill;
• screwdrivers;
• sharpened cutter;
• pencil, ruler, measuring tape.

Insulation of doors along the inner perimeter

The final stage is door insulation from the inside along the entire perimeter. Use polyurethane foam and rubberized insulation as a material.

First, remove the platbands and fill the inner cavity evenly with polyurethane foam. Please note that polyurethane foam tends to expand 3 times. A few days after complete hardening, cut off the excess, protruding foam residues with a knife. Fasten the trims in place.

Get rid of gaps, gaps between the frame and the door using rubberized insulation tape glued to the door frame. Check that it does not make it difficult to open, close the door.

You can insulate the door frame around the perimeter with a seal

So, the process of warming has come to an end. There is no particular difficulty in performing the work. Therefore, there is no need to worry about possible failure. The knowledge gained will help you simply and quickly insulate a metal entrance door without outside help.

Methods

Methods of insulating iron doors
On the Russian construction market, there are special fillers designed specifically for insulating door structures. Today, the following types of insulation material are very popular:

• building mineral wool slabs;
• basalt wool as a filler;
• insulating foam rubber.

Each metal door must be equipped with a rubberized or foam seal. It is necessary for additional sound insulation when closing and preventing the penetration of cold air into the apartment from the outside.

In addition, a good result in noise protection is obtained by treating all cracks and gaps with polyurethane foam. At the same time, in this case, similar functions with insulation are assigned to the assembly foam.

Warming and sound insulation of a metal door - video

Summing up

Self-insulation of a Chinese iron door is a good option to save money, but not lose in comfort. The materials used are inexpensive and do not require special skills to work with them.

In practice, the question of how to insulate an iron Chinese front door "pops up" every winter. Every year, new happy owners of inexpensive entrance metal products from China find that they freeze, become covered with frost, "wild" cold blows from them, and so on. The best option would be to correctly use such iron doors according to their intended purpose, without trying to consider them as entrance for a private house in the conditions of our climatic zone. Or buy quality entrance doors. If you wish, you can find today Chinese metal doors of relatively good quality and at a good price (dver16.ru/catalog/vhodnye-dveri-kitaj). But if the deed has already been done, the inexpensive metal Chinese front door has already been installed, the finishing work has been completed, I do not want to change anything. And I want to modernize what we have with a little blood. The search for masters begins, the most "desperate" tips on how to insulate an iron Chinese front door with your own hands are listened to and read on forums on the Internet. None of this makes any sense. The first popular advice on how to insulate an iron Chinese front door with your own hands. Warming "in the middle".You will not be able to insulate an iron Chinese front door yourself, precisely because it is a fairly high-tech metal product. It is impossible to make changes to the factory design with your own hands. It is practically impossible to think of a way to "disassemble and then assemble" this metal door. Dismantling it is simply not provided for dismantled, thanks to Russian ingenuity, the Chinese iron door is actually falling apart, more precisely: it is irreversibly deformed, because it was assembled at a special stand, where individual structural elements are exposed and fixed with assembly equipment. Read - they are pressed with clamps. Without factory equipment, a stand and special equipment, it cannot "become normal." That is, the most familiar technology for insulating metal doors from Russian and Ukrainian manufacturers: disassembly, filling with foam and "reverse" assembly, is not applicable here in principle, due to the design features. Trying to blow foam into the door leaf through holes drilled in the metal yourself is an absurd idea. The product is not only deformed, but all locking rods will be jammed, and most likely, the lock will fail. In addition, inside the iron Chinese door is not empty, as many think, but there is a paper honeycomb insulation. Garbage is rare, however, there is simply nowhere to blow the foam. Plus, the door structure provides for the inner frame of the door leaf, reminiscent of thin metal partitions, which will also prevent you from filling the interior space with mounting foam normally and evenly. The second popular tip is how to insulate an iron Chinese front door yourself. Insulation "inside and outside". Theoretically, as an auxiliary option, if it is impossible to properly fill the door leaf in the middle with heat-insulating material, you can try to sew the inner side of the iron Chinese door with something that does not allow the cold to pass through. Developing the "concept", it would be logical to sheathe or revet "at the same time" and the outer side of the entrance door made of iron. The method, in principle, is useless, because it is ineffective. However, a metal door from a local manufacturer can indeed be sheathed with thick wood trims. It will look beautiful and will slightly warm the front door. At least she will not freeze like that and "cry" with dew. The trouble is that local manufacturers use welded hinges and loot designs with a very large margin of safety. Chinese iron entrance doors have a completely different design of loot and hinges. Even a small additional load quickly and completely irreversibly spoils such products. Don't be fooled by the "status" of a metal front door. Yes, it is really iron, but not strong.

Metal entrance doors, made by the hands of hardworking Chinese, have firmly settled in the apartments and houses of domestic citizens. And it is not surprising, because their price, relatively good workmanship and variety of appearance invariably attracts and lures people. Unfortunately, such structures have one significant drawback - the absence of a solid layer of insulation, which is unacceptable in our climatic conditions.

We insulate the Chinese door

As usual, craftsmen quickly found their way around the situation, and found ways of how to insulate a Chinese door leaf in order to keep the precious warmth in the house. It turns out that with a minimal set of devices and skills in handling them, it is quite possible to make a real wall out of the budget door, through which not a single draft will pass. Sounds tempting, doesn't it?

This article offers options for how you can insulate detachable and one-piece entrance canvases from China with your own hands.