Turn a Window into a Door
(Page 2 of 4)
May/June 1987
Dennis Burkholder
Ask your local tool rental shop for a reciprocating saw (or a Sawzall, Milwaukee Tool Company's trademark) with a variable-speed trigger. Buy a couple of long 5-tooth-per-inch tearout blades and a couple more hacksaw blades.
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Spend a little time a few days before D (destruction) Day ferreting out your house's wiring. Use an inexpensive circuit tester (they're often called wiggies and sell for about $3) to see which circuit breakers control the outlets and switches in the wall you'll be operating on. The object is to guess whether there's a wire running under the window. If so, you'll have to be skilled enough to deal with it or prepared to hire an electrician. If you have doubts, call in a pro.
If you're new to this remodeling business, you'll be surprised how simple this job can be. With proper preparation and the right size opening, it's an easy one-day task. A MOTHER stafer and helper installed the French door you see in the photos—a job which required that they move an electrical run—in only 5 1/2 hours.
1. Turn off any circuit breakers (or remove any fuses) that control circuits in the wall you'll be working on. Test the outlets with your wiggie to be sure they're dead.
2. With a crowbar, remove the interior trim (casing) around the window and below the sill. Back up the bar with a piece of scrap wood to avoid marring the wall.
With the trim off, look between the wall finish and the window frame to see if nails go through the jambs or sill into the framing. (Some contractors set windows solely by nailing the trim to the framing.) If you find nails, it's easiest to cut them, and the reciprocating saw with a hacksaw blade is the right tool. Run the saw slowly or the blade will dull very quickly.
3. Pry behind the exterior trim. The window may come along with it, or the trim may come off. Always suspect that you've missed a nail before you use a little too much force to get out the jambs. The window's side jambs may extend a little below the siding, so you may have to pull the top out first.
4. The width of the opening you'll need to make in the siding will depend on how the exterior trim on the door will fit to the wall. The board-and-batten siding that we dealt with is perhaps the easiest, because it allowed us to cover gaps between siding and trim by May-June 1987 simply putting battens on each side of the door. Clapboards are probably the most difficult, because the ends of the boards should butt snugly against the door trim, requiring an exact cut. Remember, if you leave a little too much siding now, you can use the door itself later as a template to make an exact cut line.
