French doors and cold bridging.. advice needed

essex_grl

Hi. We have a timber frame house that is brick skin on the bottom half and block and cladding on the top half. The windows are all set back in a recess assuming within the timber frame or the cavity.

We have 2 sets of French doors, one in the kitchen and one in the lounge and both are getting wet plaster where the sides meet the frame, do not think it is penetrating as it doesn't worsen in the rain but gets worse overnight in the cold.
These doors are flush with the outside of the house with parliament hinges swinging them 180 so they are in the brick skin.. the plaster must touch this brick skin and cold bridging is causing the damp.

We have been quoted to have the doors replaced but the company have pretty much said we'll replace but it might not fix your problem and have sent a diagram of cavity closers being used but in a standard brick house. I am waiting to see if they include replacing cavity closers if they are missing. We do not know, we have only had the house 5 years.

Are there any other things we can do bar ventilate a lot which we are already doing. Not got this issue on any other window or the front door.. all set back and not in the external skin.

stuart45

Have you got a coup!e of photos, inside and outside?

essex_grl

These are of the lounge doors. The kitchen ones are fitted the same way.

stuart45

Probably is cold bridging. You could take the plasterboard off the inner reveals and replace with insulated boards. 

essex_grl

Thank you. I can mention that to our window company. We've had a quote to replace both sets of doors but they are saying they can't guarantee that new doors will fix the problem so we are at a bit a of an impass.

stuart45

They probably won't fix the problem alone if they are going in the same position in the brickwork. 

essex_grl

That's what I'm concerned about. I don't want to spend thousands on new doors to have to pay someone else to deal with the damp surround.

essex_grl

You can see on the close up a crack in the paint line. That wet area side closest to the window is much harder than the closer in part.. is it all likely to be the same piece of plasterboard? I don't know where we would even start to cut or how to replace it.

stuart45

I'm guessing what's happened is that originally when it was built the doors were set further back, and when replaced were set further forward and the gap plastered which is why it's harder than the other bit which is plasterboard.
Hack off the plaster, rip off the board and use insulated board.
This is only a guess though.

essex_grl

We know that these doors have been on for 20 years. They were fitted in 2004, we have the paperwork from the fitting from the previous owner... the company who came to quote is the same one who put these in.

We have not had this issue until this year. 

If we wanted to do that, would it be best to do so before the new doors go on or after? I'd need to find a tradesman of some kind to do it. Builder? Handyman?

FreeBear

Do it after the doors have been fitted, just tell the installers to leave the protective plastic film on the inside of the frames and skip fitting any internal trim. The insulation will butt up against the frame, plastered, and then painted. Once the paint is dry, peel off the protective plastic film. I'd do both sides and the top - A decent handyman should be able to do a decent job. I suspect most builders wouldn't be interested as it is a very small job.

Only problem I forsee is getting a matching piece of skirting... I'm assuming that the doors will be opening outwards ?