In which our hero needs carpentry advice, naturally consults a guitar forum.

[Rich_S]

We moved into a new house in September '21, which had been extensively upgraded/remodeled by previous owners, including a finished basement with tile floors and built-in shelves. One room in the basement is surrounded on two sides by closets housing the HVAC unit, hot water heater, electric service panel, and the (rather noisy) sump pump. One thing we noticed straight off was that all the doors were missing from this room. In all there were empty frames for four hinged doors and on double-wide set of bi-fold doors. Oddly, we found all the hinges in a bucket, neatly labeled each with it's own letter, which matched letters written in Sharpie on the mortises in the door frames.

We search the house; no doors. We contacted our realtor, where are the doors?, Our realtor contacted the listing agent, who presumable contacted the previous owner (who was moving into assisted living). Nobody knew where the doors were, so the _S family were SOL.

My son stays with us part-time and the larger basement room serves as his living space. Since the other room is where all the noisy equipment is, we'd really like to have a door between the two rooms. The trouble is, when the remodeling previous owner finished the basement, he didn't box in the HVAC ductwork, he simply lowered the whole ceiling. AS a result the ceilings are LOW and the door openings are only 70 inches high. Standard widths, but 70inches high. All the doors I'm looking at on the Home Depot website say they can only be trimmed 1/4" off each edge. I find this hard to believe on the (expensive) solid pine 6-panel doors, which seem to have solid top and bottom rails that could be trimmed down several inches, but taking ten inches off a door is an awful lot. It would leave very little top and bottom rail, possibly weaken the door, and make the recessed panels look weird.

Another possibility would be hollow-core doors. If I trimmed one of those that much, I'd be left with an open edge, which I would them have to fill with a piece of wood, glued in and screwed through the vertical side rails. I did this once before and it's a tedious work for one door, let alone four. Also, the garage is still so full of junk (16 months after we moved in) that I still haven't been able to set up my work shop, including the table saw that would be required to rip down the custom-sized fillers strips.

Suggestions? I can't think of a way to do this that isn't a total PITA.

 

[StoneH]

I had no problem trimming a hollow core door. I reused the solid edge pieces. This door was cut to 18"x72". No screwing, just wood glue.

 

[schmee]

Yeah, tat's a lot, look at styles that may have more room top and bottom to trim and now look weird.

 

[Bortyeast]

If it were me, and I was going to live there a while, I'd drop the ceiling, build a chase for the ductwork (flexduct I presume) and then reinstall the ceiling at a normal height. But that's just me....

 

[StoneH]

If it were me, and I was going to live there a while, I'd drop the ceiling, build a chase for the ductwork (flexduct I presume) and then reinstall the ceiling at a normal height. But that's just me....

+1

 

[Kandinskyesque]

In my old place, I got a wee favour from a friend who builds houses and was 'given' 4 hollow core doors, with those pressed faces that look like 4 panel wood doors (for £10 each).
They were 3" approx too tall because of the quarter light windows above the doors and the flooring I'd laid.

It's was easy enough to cut the 1" battens at the end out, then cut the tops and bottoms of the door (I used a plunge saw with the rail) and glue and clamp the ends back in.

 

[StoneH]

In my old place, I got a wee favour from a friend who builds houses and was 'given' 4 hollow core doors, with those pressed faces that look like 4 panel wood doors (for £10 each).
They were 3" approx too tall because of the quarter light windows above the doors and the flooring I'd laid.

It's was easy enough to cut the 1" battens at the end out, then cut the tops and bottoms of the door (I used a plunge saw with the rail) and glue and clamp the ends back in.

 

[Kev-wilson]

Hollow doors are cr*p but if you just cut it to length then remove the stile from the offcut you can re-fit the stile in the door with wood glue and it's good to go.

 

[Solaris moon]

I've worked just about every job on planet earth and I've seen a lot of stupidity in guitars and in houses and cars. 70 inches is only five feet ten inches tall. I'm only 5' 8 inches short - because that's not tall by any means. However if you're not more than five ten then this should just about touch your head. That's not a good scenario. I'd just remove it if it's a hung cieling - I don't know how many of those I've removed in my lifetime but working on cars and houses has taught me a lot about the stupidity of mankind!! Your best bet is that if the former owners took the doors or threw them away being French doors (folding into each other) then this is probably why as they couldn't cut them down to match the lower height. I would find solid doors that could be cut without a hollow core which would only weaken them unless you wanted to put a wooded support at the top as most hollow core doors (interior) are made from MDF (particle board) as this is just glue and sawdust. Otherwise take the old cieling off and put new doors in.

 

[badscrew_projects]

Yeah, that ceiling is too low - if there’s a way putting it back high I would look into this first instead of putting hobbit doors in.

 

[tomasz]

 

[Peegoo]

I was in construction/reno for a couple of years and I saw all kinds of creative solutions.

Cutting down the doors and living with the lower ceiling does nothing in the long run except continue the Cheap Options Plan of the previous owners. They saved some money by running ductwork across the joists instead of between them, installed a ceiling to cover them that's too low, and then arrived at the point that the doors had to be cut and installed. They probably didn't do that final step because they either ran out of money or simply didn't finish it because nobody lived down there. The doors probably became a garage sale...liquidation.

If you want to make that space livable, you know the deal. It's not cheap for anyone, but it's your house.

 

[Preacher]

One room in the basement is surrounded on two sides by closets housing the HVAC unit, hot water heater, electric service panel, and the (rather noisy) sump pump. One thing we noticed straight off was that all the doors were missing from this room.

You might check with your local regulations, but these units might not be able to be totally enclosed with a door. Electric water heaters can be enclosed, but gas heaters can not. Same with HVAC units.
There is a possibility that they put could not put those doors in because of local codes. When they got their final inspection the inspector might have told them this and had them remove the doors for approval.

 

[Rich_S]

First, thanks to all for your suggestions. Sadly, there's no way I going to raise the ceiling. The duct work is old-school rectangular sheet metal, about 16" x 12". The ceiling is sheet rock, with a lot of recessed lighting, both 48" fluorescent and round cans. The remodel was actually nicely done, but the guy was a craftsman, not an architect. (I strongly suspect he was a flooring & tile guy by trade. Not only is the basement done in ceramic tile, but there's a tile floor in the garden shed, and the shelves in the shed are made of scrap lengths of oak flooring.)

Anyway, the ceiling is 81"; not great, but liveable. The doorway in between the two rooms is 71" high, leaving my 5' 10" self an inch to spare. So, today I got busy cutting down a hollow-core slab door. Not that I didn't already know this, but man are they cheap. Only the sides and bottom are wood. The plug I had to glue back in the top was actually big hunk of masonite. While I had the top open, I looked down inside with a flashlight and measured where the OSB block for the lock set are. This of course confirmed that my predecessor had cut the mortise for the striker plate at the wrong height in the door frame, so I'll have to fill and re-cut that. Nothing's ever easy.

At least I got myself some new tools out of it. I replaced my old straight-edge saw guide (one that needs C-clamps to hold it down) with one of those newfangled Kreg self-clamping ones with built-in offset gauges. It's a LOT faster to set up and with so many doors to do, it's a worthwhile investment. It would be handy for cutting down plywood for building speaker cabinets. Too bad I don't plan on ever building another speaker cabinet. While I was in a buyin' mood I got one of those hinge-mortise templates for my compact router. Another worthwhile time-saver when I have 6 doors to do.

Regarding those other doors, thanks Preacher for your reminder about the codes. I'll have to check before I enclose the heaters. Since part of the reason for hanging doors is to keep the cat out of spaces where they shouldn't be, I might need to install louvered doors, or maybe come up with a completely difference solution. In the meantime, adding just this one door between the two rooms should help keep the noise down a bit.

And yes, it's true... you can never have enough clamps.

 

[studio]

Yeah, that ceiling is too low - if there’s a way putting it back high I would look into this first instead of putting hobbit doors in.

Hobbit doors...

 

[andy__d]

You might check with your local regulations, but these units might not be able to be totally enclosed with a door. Electric water heaters can be enclosed, but gas heaters can not. Same with HVAC units.
There is a possibility that they put could not put those doors in because of local codes. When they got their final inspection the inspector might have told them this and had them remove the doors for approval.

This was my first thought on reading this thread too. You will (most places) need 2 vents into the space (high and low level),if it contains gas appliances; and if there’s insufficient wall space to fit vents of the appropriate size and location to comply with local code, they probably had no option but to leave the doors off, so that it is no longer classified as an enclosed space.

 

[kuch]

If your furnace and water heater are gas, the 1st thing I would do is to put a co2 sensor in the room.

 

[Rich_S]

The house was filled with smoke & CO detectors when we moved in, but they were all in the wrong places, so I had to add three more to satisfy the inspector when we had the electric service upgraded last spring. We have smoke/CO detectors out the wazoo.

 

[Dan German]

I am 6’5” and I don’t approve of any of this nonsense.

 

[Jim_in_PA]

You can shorten a typical hollow core plain flat door if you need to...best to take it off the bottom and use a track saw or other form of guided saw to do the job. Once it's shortened, you need to push the cardboard "core" up a bit so you can insert either the original bottom inside filler or an identical replacement you make from new wood thicknessed and cut to length to fit into the bottom of the door snugly. You only need glue if you size this correctly. If you use a solid core door, particularly for the HVAC closet for better fire protection, you should be able to just cut it down at the bottom. It's best to buy doors that are not pre-routed for hinges so you can do the mortising to match what's in the door frames.

Solid pine four or six panel doors certainly can be cut down, but as you note, 10" is a lot. You'd likely have to take material off both top and bottom and proportions are going to suffer greatly. So I'll suggest flat panel doors are likely the best bet. If you do need four or six panel doors to match the decor, you can order them from a "real" lumber yard/builder's supply. Ching...ching...but available.