Can anyone help as to why my front UPVC door leaks?

manda1205 · 23 July 2011 at 11:53AM

Can anyone help with why my front UPVC door is leaking. I dont just mean dripping either, it leaks like a sieve, the whole of my front porch carpet gets absolutely saturated. We are currently renting and have had the bloke (bodger) who fitted it back numerous times and he just sticks more mastick in various places, but we're now in process of buying the house so will be needing to fix this properly.
The water seems to poor in the bottom of the frame.

Sorry pics so big, tried to make it smaller but it wont let me drag it. You can see the bottom "tray" of the door frame, thats where the water all seems to pool in and then leak through into the porch and saturate the carpet. If anyone can see whats wrong and advise Id be very grateful, thanks.

IronMaidenFan · 23 July 2011 at 6:13PM

I had the same problem a while ago - I'm pretty sure the black rubber seal has perished/shrunk so when you close the door it's no longer creating a watertight seal. The water is then collecting at the bottom and overflowing on the inside.

I got a replacement rubber gasket from ebay - problem solved!

savemoney · 23 July 2011 at 6:45PM

I think its pretty normal to have some water in that threshold, mine is same water gets in from time to time but usually they have a small gap to allow it to drain away but what you are left with is some grit. Mine is aluminium with a gap of rubber in between to stop condensation I still get water in

maninthestreet · 23 July 2011 at 6:46PM

Is there a weather strip across the bottom of the door???

chris_n_tj · 23 July 2011 at 6:48PM

looks like there isnt any drainage holes in place

GlynD · 23 July 2011 at 6:50PM

The slots for the security locks may have shifted. They can be adjusted so the door closes tighter but as someone else has also pointed out, the seal itself may be perished although it looks ok in the photograph. I'd be inclined to get someone from a uPVC door and window fitting company to come have a look at it. It isn't a big job to sort it out either way.

capeverde · 23 July 2011 at 7:31PM

ok, your door opens in and it is designed that if there is any water ingress, it will drain through holes cut or drilled in the front section of the rebate. One of two things happened here, either there are no drain holes/blocked drainholes, of more likely, looking at your picture it seems the back section of the cill is sitting proud of the inside bottom rail of the door. Therefore if any water does drain through, it will come inside rather than out. Looking at the picture in more detail, it seems you have a smallish hole for drainage, this should be widened, but more importantly the problem with the cill needs to be addressed. if you can post a pic from the outside as well, it will be helpful, also a close up of the drainage hole.

capeverde · 23 July 2011 at 7:33PM

ps just reading the posts above, it wont be anything to do with the seals, as I mentioned above, open in upvc doors are designed that water may sit on the inside of the bottom rail. Basically any water sitting on top of the gasket will fall inside when the door is opened.

manda1205 · 23 July 2011 at 8:24PM

Thanks for the replies, I cant imagine that any of the seals have perished/worn as it has leaked from day one of being fitted, the door is now roughly 4 years old and the leaking has just gradually got worse, to the point that it saturates the carpet in the porch, which is about 1.5m x 1m, this obviously only happens when the wind is blowing the rain onto the front of the house, other wise theres no leaks. There is a weather strip on the front of the door too. From what I can see there arent any drainage holes at all in the threshold part. (compared to our back door which seems to have quite a few spaced out holes towards the front of the threshold). Heres a pic from the front;

Also if we did drill drainage holes into the threshold, where is this water going to go? Under the house? As you can see from the front view, surely the water cant then get out the front of the frame so will just sit inside that step?

capeverde · 23 July 2011 at 8:35PM

ok manda, looking at that there are a few problems, as you say if there are no drain holes, some need to be drilled to release any water that may be sitting inside the bottom of the frame section. These should be drilled at the front edge next to the upstand at about 10 deg forward. Also, it seems someone has sealed up the section between the bottom of the door and the cill with silicon, this should be removed to let the water then drain to the outside rather than the inside. The other problem seems to be the cill is sitting forward of the door frame as viewed from the inside, normally it would sit behind it with a slight upstand. Other than taking the door out and refitting it, this is a bit of a difficult one as water will always want to drain inwards. The only thing I could suggest is to pump a couple of tubes of silicon into this area and then put some architrave across the bottom to tidy it up. If you do all these things it will sort the problem. Probably only 15 minutes work and under a tenner in materials for some 25mm architrave and silicon.

edit, just seen bottom of your post, the water should drain between the bottom of the frame and the top of the cill. At the moment it cant as this is sealed up with silicon. If you are drilling the drain holes, DONT drill through the cill as well, just the door frame.

manda1205 · 23 July 2011 at 8:46PM

Capeverde, thank you so much. Seems our lovely builder(good job we dont pay him) has made the problem worse over the years then, every time he's come back he has put more silicone in, so this is why there is so much everywhere, obviously this has made it worse rather than better. Will pass this all over to hubby so he can fix it all and hopefully no more drying out the carpet over the gate any more

Can anyone help as to why my front UPVC door leaks?

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