Month: March 2020

Well these pics pretty much tell the whole story, an apartment in Back Bay had a fiberglass tub enclosure which had seen better days, this is AFTER I cleaned up all the old caulking:

And here, you see the result of putting in the caulk:

[Question:  this post is by far the most popular post on my handymanning blog.  Tell me, is this just one person who loves to read it over and over, or is there that much interest in this topic??  So curious!  best,  Justin]  

A problem I see repeatedly has to do with storm doors.  Many times people install storm doors and they forget to install a wind chain.

A wind chain keeps the door from being swung open–hard– more than 90 degrees by a sudden gust of wind.  Some folks rely upon the door closer to do this job but that’s not really what it is designed to do.  The following pix will illustrate:

Here is what I found upon arrival:   

This was kinda screwy in several ways.  Note the spring hanging off to the right.  This makes no sense.  Also, because the door went flying wide open it bent the porch light.  Next you see . . .

. . . the existing door closer.   Note how the piston rod has been bent, from the force of the wind blowing the door open.  Also if you look carefully you can see that the bracket holding the piston rod has been pulled out of the door frame (I had to fix that).  Also . . . it’s black and obviously does not match the white door.

So here you see the new chain (left):

The old chain (right) was not installed properly.  It is in the wrong spot, too close to the jamb, also it is square with the frame when it should have been put in at a 45 degree angle, as I did the new one.  And here it is all done:

Note how the spring is now properly mounted in the middle, so when the door is shut the chain is pulled up and out of sight.  And finally the new closer:

I left the existing (black) door attachment piece on there, as that piece of hardware had been attached several times before and the door looked like a swiss cheese in there, full of holes.  The existing piece was well attached and I decided (as I often have to do) to do a compromise, as perfection is the enemy of the good, or in the this case, good enough.      A little adjusting of the piston screw and it’s closing perfectly, and no more wind gusts ripping everything up– the new chain will prevent the door from opening more than 90 degrees.