5 Tips on How to Keep Your Entry Door From Freezing Shut

What’s not to love about the winter season?  Freezing temperatures, cold air drafts, ice and snow, and your entry door freezing shut are just a few joys of living in a four-season climate.  The last thing you want to happen in the frigid cold is to be stuck outside with a frozen shut entry door, trying to get into your warm house.

Why Do Entry Doors Freeze Shut?

Your entry door shouldn’t be affected by the extreme cold as it’s designed to withstand harsh temperatures, even in the wintertime.  However, that’s not always the case, and as a homeowner, you’re probably well aware of things around your house not working as they’re meant to.

Entry doors can freeze for a couple of reasons.  For one, old weather stripping could be the culprit.  Weather stripping consists of rubber seals that surround your entry door and over time, the rubber seals can deteriorate over time or break off and become damaged.

The lack of sealing around the door can allow cold air to come inside, and mixed with the ambient temperature of your home’s interior and its humidity, this can cause the entry door to freeze shut.  Trapped moisture escapes through the weather stripping’s gaps and condenses, and as the temperature drops, the higher chance the door will freeze shut.

Your door could also be incorrectly aligned.  Improper installation is a major reason for misalignment, which is the result of a do-it-yourself without the proper know-how or a contractor without the experience or training needed to install an entry door.

Fixing & Preventing a Frozen Entry Door

Fortunately there are a few ways to prevent your entry door from freezing in the winter.  Try these five tips to make sure your entry door is function properly in the cold weather:

1. Realign Your Door

As misalignment is one of the biggest reasons of a frozen shut entry door, the solution to try is to reinstall the door so that it doesn’t leave any gaps.  The door may not have been installed correctly to begin with or it could be the case that over time, the door’s sashes fell out of alignment with the frame.  Sometimes, a door’s sashes or frame can become warped.

Examine your door to determine if it needs to be rehung or if the door requires new hardware (or hardware that simply needs to be adjusted).  Preventing heat leaks by means of your door’s alignment can stop it from freezing shut in the winter.

2. New Weather Stripping

Working weather stripping is as important as your entry door’s alignment as stopping gaps around the door will also prevent cold air from freezing the door shut (while also saving you on unnecessarily high energy bills).  Luckily, weather-stripping your entry door is an easy task and you can find weather-stripping kits at your local hardware store or online.

Weather stripping needs to be replaced if you find that the rubber seal has tears, cracks, or is missing. Some entry doors may have metal weather stripping.  If yours is among those, it’s best to call a contractor to replace it.

3. Install a Door Sweep

A door sweep is a preventative measure that helps keep warm air inside your home during the winter while putting a stop to cold air leaks.  A door sweep is a strip of rubber that seals the bottom of a hinged entry door.  You can pick up a door sweep seal at a home improvement store or online.

Door sweeps come in standard sizes but can be trimmed down to fit the bottom of your door.  Like weather stripping seals, a door sweep is designed to stop cold air from seeping through and mixing with the humidity of your home that causes the door to freeze shut.

4. Control the Humidity

If you’ve tried weather stripping, installing a door sweep, and checking your door’s alignment and your still experiencing a stuck entry door, try controlling the humidity of your home.    The issue could be a clash of warm and cold air around the door that’s causing it to freeze.

Use exhaust fans, a dehumidifier, or a cracked window to help level out the humidity.  Venting the humidity can create a better balance of hot and cold to prevent the exterior and interior temperatures from clashing around the entry door.

5. Use a Lubricant

If the door that’s freezing has tracks, try using a lubricant like WD-40.  Lubricating the tracks of a sliding door can work because most lubricants have a lower freezing point than water, which prevents the door from freezing shut.  You can also try using lubricant around the door’s threshold if it’s not a sliding door.

Avoid a Frozen Entry Door This Season

Checking your entry door’s weather stripping and alignment are the most important steps you can do ahead of the winter season.  Don’t find out in the middle of the coldest time of year if your door will freeze shut thanks to misalignment and poor sealing.  Instead, make it a point to check your entry doors in the fall before the cold temperatures strike.

Feldco has high-quality doors in many shapes and sizes to perfectly fit your home. We also have professional and experienced installers to make sure the job is done correctly.

We provide homeowners with great local services and showrooms so they can customize their homes with a variety of styles and colors.

Speak with a product specialist and get a free quote today.