Do you remember Wednesday’s big rain storm? We certainly do because we were surprised by a leak in our bedroom, one of the few clean, no-construction rooms in the house. : (

I immediately knew the source, a poorly installed threshold at the 3rd floor deck door (installed before our time). It was on our to list to replace but it was not a priority item until now.

So instead of working on the small bedroom a big part of this weekend was spent rebuilding this threshold. Here is the beginning of the demo. The biggest issue was that the threshold and sub sill all sloped towards the inside not outside of the house: >

To get at all the damage we not only had to take out the threshold but also the bottom few inches of the jamb and casing which where rotted. We took every back to the framing and the installed a new piece of pressure treated lumber, cut to have a good slope to the outside. The threshold will be attached directly to it, so it needed to have right slope.

Then installed flexible flashing and turned it up the sides. You always have to assume water will get in somewhere, so flashing gives the water a path right back out.

I milled a new sloped threshold out of oak (naturally rot resistant) on our new table saw (a Black Friday Deal!). We wanted it to be one piece and wide enough to cover everything. I also pre-installed an apron to the threshold since we don’t want to attach it thru the flashing / roof. The threshold attachment will be inside the door.

Here it is installed with new plinth blocks and patched jambs. The flashing hangs a little long but that will be concealed when we reinstall the deck board.

The door itself also needed some work but that’s a whole other story (& post).