I'm adding a sliding glass door on the outside of our basement French doors. Dang thing is always way too cold in the winter. So, I pull the outside trim off to find what I thought I would find. On one side they had a 3/4" board, not attached to anything, doing absolutely nothing in an 1 1/4" gap. I got a fresh can of foam sealant, and I am going to shave a 2x4 down to fit in there. And, I am going to anchor everything into the concrete, also. Always pisses me off when you find the cut rate crap some builders do behind the trim.

 

I had a double pane sliding back door with double pane (storm?) sliding doors outside that. The glass still got so cold the air movement from convection would blow the curtains out at the bottom, send a freezing breeze across the floor. That was the first year; next summer I took it all out, put in a conventional insulated door with a top half window, put a matching size window next to it, and just walled the rest in. Way more comfortable, easier on the heating bill, and no more cleaning crud out of the tracks; the original was always gritty trying to move it. 'Course, you probably don't see 10-30 below very often...

This house had so many breezes in it that first winter, all gone now. Expanding foam and silicon sealant are great. Houses I had in Phoenix were way worse; doubt you could have keep one of those warm below zero, and the plumbing in exterior walls would've froze. I could write my name in the dust on the tv an hour after I cleaned it; when those big dust storms would hit, the living room window in my first Phoenix house would flex so much a jet of dust would squirt through the middle where the panes met. Saw million dollar homes with those same cheap windows, too; even the multi million dollar home builders cut all kinds of corners.

 

[QUOTE...... Always pisses me off when you find the cut rate crap some builders do behind the trim.[/QUOTE]
. I've seem stuff that some builders did in our devlopments that I couldn't even dream up. I always told my subs that if I caught them cutting corners, I'd fire their azzes.....and I did fire a few.

 

My house was built by settlers, it has a few gaps.

 

Log cabim?

 

I decided to use the sliding glass door (double pane with gas) as a storm door, and since it has a screen I'll finally be able to open the door in nice weather like we are having now. Since I only paid $50 for a 6 year-old door, this is going to be a inexpensive fix. Add in the can of foam, a tube of caulk, a few sleeve anchors, and some new trim, and I will still be way under $100. Sometimes I am a real cheap-***!

 

Built by mountain men who got lost.

 

Yep.."real mountain men" that didn't believe in GPS's ....

 

At first, then they got in a tuffle with the indians and it got burnt down. So they rebuilt it with scrapes from somebody else's house in about 1870. Then there was an addition in 1908 and another in 1924. I tried to pick another fight with indians but I can't seem to find any around the neighborhood.

 

Check the local 7/11....