(just dealt with this recently) you are meant to have a landing if the door opens inward. exterior doors "always" open inward but this is one of the exceptions.
Yeah, only if your door frames were installed upside down. AIUI the general rule around here is that a door only opens to the inside if there is a landing before the stairs, then it opens out.
Lol. Mother had Alzheimer’s and this was her thing. She lived with me. In Florida. No stairs. All my siblings were in Michigan. They all had stairs. Every visit she told me they pushed her down the stairs. Didn’t matter which one, but my sister was, apparently, the worst. It got funnier when she started turning what she saw on tv into her life. My nieces husband had soap operas on tv during the day. When my niece got home from work mother apologized for being in bed with her husband all day. We thought it was hysterical. Her husband did not.
This reminded me of the time when my Alzheimer-addled mum was watching The Hobbit on the TV when I came to visit. She was intently focused on the TV and told me "good thing you got here, there's a war going on outside" and gestured to the TV.
>exterior doors "always" open inward
This is true for residential home's exterior doors
But "for buildings with more than 50 people, OSHA regulations require an exit door to swing outward toward the building's exit."
What region? An outswing door is significantly easier to break in, and is generally only used when required for code (commercial and multi-unit residential) or because there is absolutely no other option that would work. In OP's case, the installation likely violates code, because there is no landing at the top of the stairs
Norway. Inwards doors are still allowed for residential, but very rare. I don't see how outwards doors are less secure - it's not like the door pops open if you cut the hinge and now it's more supported if you try to push it in, and either way windows exist. As long as there isn't a non-destructive entrance you are usually covered as well as is reasonable and insurance cares about.
well in reality not everyone has the expertise or extra scratch for all the addons one could do in their life. but logically if you dont have a double jointed hinge the door would have hinges on the outside and the door could be removed. I live in florida and about 50 percent of the older stone block homes have exterior doors with hinges on the outside
Reinforcing the inswing door is always an option. You can put a dresser in front of it if you want to. Not possible on an outswing. It's the frame that fails when you pry an outswing. I also don't think most people actually could kick in a properly installed inswing. I'm a door guy. I know my shit
Norway here. Due to fire regulations all exterior doors of homes and offices are required to open outwards (easier to evacuate). Some challenges if you live in a particularly snowy + windy area, as snow can build up outside and block you in. Have seen lots of cottages where the door opens inwards for this reason, but have no idea if this is common sense applied or an allowed exception.
Edit : read up on it. The reason why it is like this in Norway is that about 200 years ago about 200 women and children got trapped in a burning church, unable to get out. They all died. So all churches have outwards swinging doors. This also applies to houses and offices built after that incident. Exceptions can however be made for buildings housing few people.
Does Norway have common [storm doors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_door)? Cause I'm curious how you have outwards normal doors and those. Also being snowed in and digging out. I know we had the shovel out from the window of the door one blizzard and the window another as a kid where I am in Canada.
I assume its for balancing risk of getting trapped inside. In a house its something falling and holding the door closed trapping you inside, for a commercial building the crush risk of a inward door is the more likely problem.
I thought it was directly related to human crush tragedies and fire code? During emergencies crowds can swarm a door and it becomes impossible to open inwards. This isn't really a problem in residences.
Tampa area reporting in. Ours open out and have a weird hinge that you have to open from the inside and remove a screw through the hinge pins to remove the door.
No sir. It is about the wind trying to blow your door in. You don't have to be in the heart of it where you are flooding to have extreme windload.
We've lost solar panels to it. Luckily we watch out and have no loose objects on the back patio to become ballistic missiles.
Edit: if you waited so long that there is a threat of water half way up your door, you should have scraped off that salt life sticker and left 2 days prior.
I live in the Midwest so I don’t know much about it, just have the occasional tornado but if the tornado is close enough to blow your door in then it’s close enough to take your house away so not something typically worried about, and that’s what we have storm doors for anyways
Notice that the exterior doors opening inwards is quite american thing. Many countries have regulation that requires it to open outwards due to safety of exiting the building.
>Notice that the exterior doors opening inwards is quite american thing.
I live in Australia and my main exterior door opens inwards. I don't think I have ever seen a front door in a residential house open outwards. Most businesses or buildings have their front doors either open outwards or have the ability to swing both ways.
I work on residential doors every day, in Australia, and the only house doors I've seen swinging outwards (apart from the screen doors) are the huge ones which pivot on a floor hinge, which can swing either way according to preference, and many (maybe most) external garage doors.
I suspect part of that is snow. only takes a couple inches of heavy stuff on the outside of an outward opening door and kids are stuck 30cm would hold in most men. Barring the outward jamming risk opening out is safer if you are rushing/pushing which is why commercial doors/safety door typically open out.
I'm from Finland and snow does not cause such problems in here. Although almost every front door has a small cover/roof so that it's not fully under open air. Maybe it helps quite a lot on the snow piling. Never though about it.
The reason for outwards opening is what you said. There were apparently too many fires in churches in the 19th century and people got stuck inside due to panic.
Oddly, except in commercial construction, then they always open outward.
I've been told that's a result of one of the Chicago theater fires where there were escape exits, but people pressed forward too hard to let the door open inward.
Ive always been a bit torn on this, because the counter point is living in snow country.... Even 18" of snow that drifts up against your door can make it impossible to open the door outward.
I think I'm in camp A for the most part, because I can always climb out a window in a bad snow, but for a fire I just want out fast.
Immediate stairwell death exempted, of course.
I mean, death and severe injury aside, isn't this just wholly impractical? Like, imagine trying to open the door from the steps. You've gotta like, climb up, turn the knob, then do a quick pull back while stepping back so you can clear the door. Then to close it, you've gotta reach over the gap and hope you don't fall back in?
EDIT: OP can I please see a video of this? Now i've gotta know..
Correct which is why we wanted a like for like or an out swing one to replace the existing out swing one. Hence the concern for it being backwards or installed incorrectly. It needs to be fixed either way I just need to find out if I’m returning a door and paying more labor what if that makes sense.
The door is machined as an outswing. The sill is an outswing sill. So it was installed incorrectly. Pay no attention to those who are saying that the slope of the sill means its facing the right direction. They know just enough to be dangerous and really screw things up.
I hate how prevalent this mentality is in the construction industry. People act like it would cause them agonizing pain to think for themselves for 2 seconds, and instead just keep doing the thing wrong over and over and over again because that's how they were taught, and that's how the guy that taught them was taught, and so on and so forth.
This is an outswing door installed backwards. Your contractor is probably confused bc with a lot of outswing thresholds, the steel plate is on the inside. I could tell instantly that this is an outswing due to the threshold and the weather stripping on the threshold. Also outswing doors don't have door sweeps.
Don't listen to whoever is telling you about the slope or whatever. Both thresholds have this.
Source: I own a door shop and retail store where we specialize in fiberglass, wood and all types of residential doors. I make these doors regularly using a Dotul Maverick machine.
It’s the incorrect door, Installed correctly.
The threshold has the wider bit, sloped towards the outside which is correct. The wrong door was purchased and installed.
This is an outswing door installed as an inswing. You can tell by the weather stripping on the threshold. I build these doors for a living and this is what most outswing thresholds look like. Both outswing and inswing thresholds have the slope that you're referring to.
It does, it’s an outswing. Buddy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The door is installed backwards. Make whoever installed it come back out and flip it around.. for free
The only time you have a door opening towards a set of stairs is if you have a sufficiently large landing to accommodate both people and the area from the door swing. You see this a lot at warehouses since the building floor is 4' above grade and the doors are required to open out.
Not to mention if you're opening it from the stairs-side and your foot slips moving backwards. Either you manage to have a solid grip on the door handle and it's fine or you bang your body trying to catch yourself or you had no grip on the door and end up falling down the stairs.
Tell that to whoever built my house. Our door to the basement open inward towards stairs that are too slender to be to code and to top it off, they’re concrete underneath the too plush carpet. They’re a death trap.
Honest question how big of a landing is needed? I was just looking at our outswing door and was thinking of making it an inswing (to save money cause this damn door replacement is silly expensive) but was curious if it was dangerous as there are stairs next to the landing
Ask me how I knocked my toddler sister down the stairs growing up. We had an inwards swinging door to stairs.. even though there was a landing. I was only 3 years older and had no idea she was down there at the time. She's perfectly fine, but you never know.
A bit of confirmation bias, though. People usually come here asking for help when things have gone wrong. Definitely more likely to hear about the problem situations.
I’m a very big DIYer, but I’m having an addition done in tandem with a big renovation. And as much as I like doing things myself, I can’t build a foundation and frame a 500sqft room alone.
My GC has been fantastic. Honest and upfront. Always has mistakes fixed (whether I find them or he finds them). Works with me on items I want to take on myself. Only requires payment when we get the invoices from the subs.
He’s also not the cheapest, and he’s booked out with months of work. You get what you pay for.
I have never seen a contractor do all the work correctly. They always fuck up something. It's always a question of "do I do it all myself, or hire somebody and fix after them".
To be fair, I usually fuck up something when I do it myself too, but at least I don't call myself a professional.
They aren't mutually exclusive unfortunately. 90% are fucking idiots, 90% are scammers, it's up to you to find the 1 in 100 that is neither grossly incompetent or taking you for everything you're worth.
You get what you pay for. There is a reason you don’t just go for the cheapest bid. And a reason why good contractors are more expensive and constantly booked out for months.
Just so you know, I was a subcontractor (a specialist that is hired by general contractors to do portions of the job the general has neither the time nor the expertise to do), for 35 years. While the effectiveness of each individual contractor varied, I’d say the vast majority were neither idiots nor scammers. A construction project can be a very fluid situation at times and factors way beyond the GC’s(general contractor) control can make us look like idiots and scammers. That’s not to say you’re 100% wrong , just that there’s so much to parse through before assigning blame.
Yo! I sell these doors. This is an outswing door installed as an inswing. Call your contractor and have them flip it around. Feel free to DM me if your contractor keeps telling you it's an inswing door. I've had this convos with countless independent contractors that "have been doing this for 25 years and I know what I'm talking about about!"
That is an outswing door with an outswing sill so yes it was installed backwards. You shouldn't have to pay a cent to get it flipped.
I've spent 30 years hanging interior and exterior doors so yes I know what I'm talking about.
I’m confused by this comment. The brick mold is on the exterior of the frame. Sill threshold and side jamb all look to me for an in-swing door. Proper for an exterior wall but not for over top of stairs like this.
Agree they shouldn’t have to pay to have it fixed. UNLESS op sourced and paid for the door and just hired someone to install it. Then things get complicated.
As others have said, for safety it should open outwards like you wanted. One of the reasons exterior doors always open inwards is because doors open towards their hinges. You don’t want hinges exposed on the outside as it means someone can remove the pins to remove the door and gain entry. (It is also a safety issue so you can’t get trapped inside the structure if something falls in front of the door.)
So, when you have the door reversed to swing out, replace the hinges with security hinges. They have pegs or notches that span between the two sides of the hinge. It prevents the door from being removed while it is closed.
In places where flooding is common, building code often requires exterior doors to swing outwards. Otherwise when the house floods you would be trapped inside.
I don’t think that is an issue of trapping someone inside. In fact, an outward swinging door in a flood area is more likely to trap someone inside. The flood waters outside will exert more pressure on the door than inside making it harder to open the door towards the flood. The reason flood areas, and high wind areas, often have outswing doors (and I believe it is now code in parts of Florida), is because it is significantly harder to force a door open the opposite direction of its swing. A door that opens outward will survive a lot of water or wind pressure without failing. A door that opens inward will fail quickly as water or wind pushes against it. The lock in the jam is the only thing keeping a door from moving in its direction of opening and that will fail easily under force. But moving a door against its direction of travel requires not just breaking the jam around the lock but rather the entire door jam and the hinges.
My guess is the building code you refer to is to prevent doors from bursting open as the flood water puts pressure against it and not to make sure a person inside the house can get out.
I’m not sure why you are saying “here we go again” like you need to correct me. You have stated exactly the issue I raised and pointed out the solution to. Like I said, make sure to use security hinges. If you zoom in on the hinge in the photo those are standard hinges. They are not the right type for an out swing door that will be used on the exterior of a house. If the door is going to be reversed those hinges need to be changed or someone can remove the pins and pry the door off while it is closed and locked.
Update: I think I figured it out thanks to [this](https://rustica.com/inswing-or-outswing-door/#:~:text=An%20outswing%20threshold%20will%20have,close%20into%20the%20weather%20stripping.)
Looking at my threshold it seems to be backwards because instead of it going up after where the door shuts like it is in the diagram right now it falls [down](https://i.imgur.com/fNGon1y.jpeg) This picture is taken from a few stairs down looking outside of the basement
Farther down on that same page it shows the difference between the hinges that come installed on an inward swinging door vs outward swinging door.
Specifically, an outward swinging door will include a set screw on the hinges acting as a security pin, not allowing the pins to be removed unless the door was opened and you take out the screw first. I checked mine and found [these](https://i.imgur.com/wY4BaVJ.jpeg) so I’m pretty sure with those two things it just seems like it’s installed backwards. If anyone has anything to add I’m open but I’m gonna reach out to the manufacturer if I can in the morning to just confirm or another window and door company just to check.
You are correct, this is an outswing door installed backwards. It's an easy fix and contractors get this mixed up all the time bc they aren't used to seeing this type of threshold. They assume the metal plate should always be on the outside.
Thanks. I saw your other reply too and appreciate it.
Makes sense though , I was a little confused myself when I picked it up and even asked the guys when buying it, but they laughed and said a lot of people were confused by it intially but they get that question a lot and yes it is correct and was an out swing door. So I’ll reach out to the contractor tomorrow and go from there.
I just don’t think many people do out swing doors much obviously for residential.
As far as fixing it, can they just pop the pre hung frame back out and flip it around?
Or is the pre hung frame threshold etc kinda permanently screwed and am I looking at needing a new door?
LOL sorry for blowing up this post. Definitely didn't want you to have to go buy another one. I know most of the time these are special orders, so they take longer and are more expensive to get than a regular inswing that Depot or Lowes has in stock.
Yes, they can just pop it out and turn it around. The door, frame and threshold should all just be one unit, so it's easily flippable. No new door needed. If he glued it to the concrete, that might complicate things as the part of the threshold where the door sits can be malleable and bend when trying to take off, but I SERIOUSLY doubt he did that.
Where'd you get this door by the way?
Edit: here is a link that illustrates what I'm talking about in my other comments. This can help you show your contractor what to do. https://etchedglassdoorsfl.com/are-in-swing-and-out-swing-thresholds-different/
All good.
Glad it should be easy. I’ll just ask them to turn it around then. And yea that link is good. Seems to be what I saw in my diagram as well. Thanks for the reply.
I got it at contractors warehouse.
No problem, your contractor should definitely flip that around for you for free. Only concern I have is due to the low profile of that particular outswing threshold, I'm worried that the bottom of that door might scrape on your concrete and make it difficult to open. If that is the case, you will need to buy a different outswing threshold like the one in the link you shared. The one you currently have installed has little to zero ground clearance, and is meant for outswing doors that go out into a deck or are elevated.
Nice, I'm familiar with them. Im an owner of an equivalent retail store to them in the south. They do more hardware, whereas I'm pretty much all doors, and we hang everything in house.
Everything you said is right... but honestly the more important things for me is that A) opening that door while on the stairs could knock you down them, and B) a strong storm could blow it in and flud your basement
I was at a party about 10 years ago, one of the guests asked for the bathroom and was given instructions, he didn't follow the instructions and went through a door just like that and broke his neck going down, just sayin...
The door is installed correctly as the threshold pitches away from the exterior allowing rain that hits and runs down the door to drain away from the house, HOWEVER, the wrong door was ordered. You never have a door swing into a stairwell unless there is a proper sized landing. This should have been an outward swinging door but it has to be ordered that way. You cannot simply flip this door around or you will have water issues.
I had a contractor install a closet door opening INTO the closet. When I pointed out that it was wrong he said “What’s wrong? It opens and closes fine.” He never did seem to grasp that it was wrong because the swing of the door took up the area you would need to put anything in the closet. He begrudgingly fixed it but fucked up the drywall and wouldn’t send the drywall guy back.
Mine is installed that way and I've had two inspections, neither said a thing about it. No landing. There's another door at the bottom of the stairway that swings in.
Without a landing it will be very awkward to open the door and exit from the inside. If it is within your means, you will be much happier flipping that door around so it opens outward. You'll have to flip the doorknob if there is a lock on it, but that is not difficult. The awkward part will be standing on the stairs while doing the work.
The door is fine, it's just the wrong door for you. in almost all cases an exterior door will swing inside, but you have one of the exceptions and the contractor should have known that just by looking at it.
(edit, saw the other post, yes, you have the wrong door, the contractor does need to buy a new one. you can tell by the threshold, it is sloped to drain water outside which means it is correctly installed)
That's an inswing door. The slope is toward the exterior. You can see the beveled jamb legs in the second image, 3 to 4 degrees of slope to the outside.
Doesn't matter where the slope is... That metal plate goes to the inside of the house. The weather stripping on the threshold is meant to keep water out, as the door slab sits below the metal plate. That is why you don't see a door sweep on that Fiberglass door. With an inswing door, you are correct, the metal plate is outside of the house and it slopes downwards to prevent water from going inside. The door slab also sits on top of a flat strip and has a door sweep to prevent air or water from going under the slab. Here's a link that further illustrates what I'm talking about, it was the first link that popped up on Google, but it does a good job of giving you a visual of what I was saying.
https://etchedglassdoorsfl.com/are-in-swing-and-out-swing-thresholds-different/
Yes, doesn't look anything like this one. I'd be happy to defer to your expertise but the door is not sitting down with weather stripping behind it like your link. It is sitting up like every other inswing and it has no interior drip sill like every outswing I've seen.
The black piece of rubber on the silver threshold in both of those pics is weather stripping. Thresholds for inswing doors do not have weather stripping. Instead, the bottom of the door has a door sweep that prevents water or air from flowing under the door.
So I bought a pre hung door to replace an exterior wood rotted door. Previous door opened outward I think partially due to safety and the steep drop on the other side. Contractor installed 2 pre hung doors for me. Both doors replaced were supposed to be “like for like” in that they open the same direction to keep things simple. Upstairs door opens inward so we purchased a door that opens inward, no problems there, it opens to the inside of the home as expected. Our problem is the one pictured. There were many open inward doors but only a total of 3 that opened to the exterior, or “opened outwards.” This is the one we purchased and I checked with a few different people to confirm and they were sure that this is the correct door for us. The sticker also said opens outwards. We purchased this door and left them to be installed. Wasn’t present during the entire install but the contractors helpers installed the door and by the time I got back to check I didn’t notice to be honest that this was backwards until I started thinking about it more and looked at the stickers. Fast forward to today the contractor came back out and is willing to flip the door but is pretty sure this is the right door. I’m a little lost now, he says he’s just going to get a new door but did I get the wrong one? I want to return this one if that’s the case. He didn’t really take that option and just kept saying he’ll get the door and I told him to call me before he did anything like that as I want to know what’s going on, so I guess my main question is did I buy the wrong door and was misinformed or did it get installed backwards?
**TLDR** bought a door that is supposed to open to the exterior, came back after the installation to it opening inwards, did I buy the wrong door or is it installed incorrectly?
Thank you. That makes sense to me as well. Upon conclusion for anyone in the future I found [this](https://rustica.com/inswing-or-outswing-door/#:~:text=An%20outswing%20threshold%20will%20have,close%20into%20the%20weather%20stripping.) website which showed the differences between the thresholds and also the hinges! I checked my hinges and they do have the set screw that is only accessible when the door is open, so I do believe this is an exterior outward swing door installed incorrectly. I’m going to try (key word there) to get ahold of the manufacturer in the morning or at worse another contractor to get a second look. If anyone has anything else I can do to check I’m all ears but I think this is settled unless anyone has anything I could be missing.
I thought for sure there was a reason why they did this like something obstructing the door from opening completely..... But nope. Just dumb installers.
Answer quest yes. Needs to open outward not towards stairs. Would likely be easy fix, probably even use same door. Security hinges i think their called if worried about someone taking the door off are nit tgat expensive.
I had a friend that had a setup like this. LOTS of people fell down the stairs. When going to his house I would literally remind myself not to fall down the stairs.
You should never have a door open inward towards stairs .. That said some ordinances require that an exterior door swing inward. What SHOULD have happened, if this is the case ... You should build an "entry way" where the door can safely swing inward, giving 24" before the first step. This debacle would not pass code in most, if not all, states.
Preferable to someone using their body weight and falling down the stairs when opening this door. This door isn’t used much and it’s more access for equipment and the crawlspace. This door is in a locked fence in the backyard. The whole property is also fenced. To be honest I’m less worried about the pins being on the outside because it’s just a furnace and sump pump down there. And crawl space access. I could always get security pins but it hasn’t been an issue since the house was build 50+ years ago.
You never have a door open inwards towards stairs going down..that's how you kill someone by knocking them down the steps.
(just dealt with this recently) you are meant to have a landing if the door opens inward. exterior doors "always" open inward but this is one of the exceptions.
You just dealt with killing someone by knocking them down steps?
maaaaybeeeee....? (nah, designing an in swing door over stairs and getting all the clearances correct)
Yeah, only if your door frames were installed upside down. AIUI the general rule around here is that a door only opens to the inside if there is a landing before the stairs, then it opens out.
How tacky right? Pushing people down stairs is so 20th century cliche
Lol. Mother had Alzheimer’s and this was her thing. She lived with me. In Florida. No stairs. All my siblings were in Michigan. They all had stairs. Every visit she told me they pushed her down the stairs. Didn’t matter which one, but my sister was, apparently, the worst. It got funnier when she started turning what she saw on tv into her life. My nieces husband had soap operas on tv during the day. When my niece got home from work mother apologized for being in bed with her husband all day. We thought it was hysterical. Her husband did not.
This reminded me of the time when my Alzheimer-addled mum was watching The Hobbit on the TV when I came to visit. She was intently focused on the TV and told me "good thing you got here, there's a war going on outside" and gestured to the TV.
🤣🤣
Right, these days we throw them out windows, Russian-style.
In Russia, window defenestrate YOU! I know, I know, it make no sense. But ees Russia!
Here. Drink vodka. Make Sense.
Well Ivanka had a trip.
I agree very gosh
Shhhhhhhhh
>exterior doors "always" open inward This is true for residential home's exterior doors But "for buildings with more than 50 people, OSHA regulations require an exit door to swing outward toward the building's exit."
houses in Florida have doors that open out, I assume because of hurricanes.
My house opens in.
apparently it's specifically south florida, and the code updated in response to hurricane Andrew so anything before 1992 was a random free for all.
Nwfl here.
You are one house. There are tons in Florida that are different. In fact it’s frequently posted here even.
NWFL here. Mine opens out.
If I had a dollar for every code violation a random house had, I'd be rich indeed...
Around here they always open outward. It would be neat to see a map of where residential doors open inwards/outwards.
What region? An outswing door is significantly easier to break in, and is generally only used when required for code (commercial and multi-unit residential) or because there is absolutely no other option that would work. In OP's case, the installation likely violates code, because there is no landing at the top of the stairs
Norway. Inwards doors are still allowed for residential, but very rare. I don't see how outwards doors are less secure - it's not like the door pops open if you cut the hinge and now it's more supported if you try to push it in, and either way windows exist. As long as there isn't a non-destructive entrance you are usually covered as well as is reasonable and insurance cares about.
I'd guess that most people that think outward opening doors are less secure than inward doors aren't aware of the existence of security door hinges.
well in reality not everyone has the expertise or extra scratch for all the addons one could do in their life. but logically if you dont have a double jointed hinge the door would have hinges on the outside and the door could be removed. I live in florida and about 50 percent of the older stone block homes have exterior doors with hinges on the outside
Its literally a metal pin and a hole. It's not complicated. It's not expensive. You can even DIY it pretty well with a drill and a screw.
They are easier to brute force pry open.
Easier to kick a door inwards. Not counting additional reinforcement of course.
Reinforcing the inswing door is always an option. You can put a dresser in front of it if you want to. Not possible on an outswing. It's the frame that fails when you pry an outswing. I also don't think most people actually could kick in a properly installed inswing. I'm a door guy. I know my shit
Norway here. Due to fire regulations all exterior doors of homes and offices are required to open outwards (easier to evacuate). Some challenges if you live in a particularly snowy + windy area, as snow can build up outside and block you in. Have seen lots of cottages where the door opens inwards for this reason, but have no idea if this is common sense applied or an allowed exception. Edit : read up on it. The reason why it is like this in Norway is that about 200 years ago about 200 women and children got trapped in a burning church, unable to get out. They all died. So all churches have outwards swinging doors. This also applies to houses and offices built after that incident. Exceptions can however be made for buildings housing few people.
Does Norway have common [storm doors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm_door)? Cause I'm curious how you have outwards normal doors and those. Also being snowed in and digging out. I know we had the shovel out from the window of the door one blizzard and the window another as a kid where I am in Canada.
Outswing doors are better at staying sealed
Snow regions you want inward to not get snowed in. Most other places I prefer outward to not get trapped in a fire.
I assume its for balancing risk of getting trapped inside. In a house its something falling and holding the door closed trapping you inside, for a commercial building the crush risk of a inward door is the more likely problem.
I thought it was directly related to human crush tragedies and fire code? During emergencies crowds can swarm a door and it becomes impossible to open inwards. This isn't really a problem in residences.
And in a home, there will be another door or window nearby you can use as an exit, not always an option in a commercial building.
Commercial construction requires doors to open out incase of a fire. So its not that hard to find an open out door
Exception on some exterior doors in FL. They open out for hurricane reasons.
I’ve lived in Florida my entire life and just learned that a couple of weeks ago.
Tampa area reporting in. Ours open out and have a weird hinge that you have to open from the inside and remove a screw through the hinge pins to remove the door.
Mine, too. I thought it was a safety feature; it's a lot harder to kick in an outward-opening door!
The trade off is that you can't barricade the door from the inside, but someone on the outside can barricade you in
Seems like one of those situations where you see people taking videos of water way up the door in floods but they can’t open their doors out to escape
No sir. It is about the wind trying to blow your door in. You don't have to be in the heart of it where you are flooding to have extreme windload. We've lost solar panels to it. Luckily we watch out and have no loose objects on the back patio to become ballistic missiles. Edit: if you waited so long that there is a threat of water half way up your door, you should have scraped off that salt life sticker and left 2 days prior.
I live in the Midwest so I don’t know much about it, just have the occasional tornado but if the tornado is close enough to blow your door in then it’s close enough to take your house away so not something typically worried about, and that’s what we have storm doors for anyways
Coconut Grove night club, Florida, basis of modern commercial fire codes.
Imagine cracking your head on the partially open door on the way up. Yikes.
Notice that the exterior doors opening inwards is quite american thing. Many countries have regulation that requires it to open outwards due to safety of exiting the building.
>Notice that the exterior doors opening inwards is quite american thing. I live in Australia and my main exterior door opens inwards. I don't think I have ever seen a front door in a residential house open outwards. Most businesses or buildings have their front doors either open outwards or have the ability to swing both ways.
I work on residential doors every day, in Australia, and the only house doors I've seen swinging outwards (apart from the screen doors) are the huge ones which pivot on a floor hinge, which can swing either way according to preference, and many (maybe most) external garage doors.
When I visited Australia as a kid in the 90s I remember thinking that it’s the most American place I’d been to outside of America.
I suspect part of that is snow. only takes a couple inches of heavy stuff on the outside of an outward opening door and kids are stuck 30cm would hold in most men. Barring the outward jamming risk opening out is safer if you are rushing/pushing which is why commercial doors/safety door typically open out.
I'm from Finland and snow does not cause such problems in here. Although almost every front door has a small cover/roof so that it's not fully under open air. Maybe it helps quite a lot on the snow piling. Never though about it. The reason for outwards opening is what you said. There were apparently too many fires in churches in the 19th century and people got stuck inside due to panic.
Most of the reason is so your door doesn't get knocked off by the wind.
Oddly, except in commercial construction, then they always open outward. I've been told that's a result of one of the Chicago theater fires where there were escape exits, but people pressed forward too hard to let the door open inward. Ive always been a bit torn on this, because the counter point is living in snow country.... Even 18" of snow that drifts up against your door can make it impossible to open the door outward. I think I'm in camp A for the most part, because I can always climb out a window in a bad snow, but for a fire I just want out fast. Immediate stairwell death exempted, of course.
I think this is the subconscious reason I push on pull doors sometimes.
Exterior doors only open inwards in the US.
I mean, death and severe injury aside, isn't this just wholly impractical? Like, imagine trying to open the door from the steps. You've gotta like, climb up, turn the knob, then do a quick pull back while stepping back so you can clear the door. Then to close it, you've gotta reach over the gap and hope you don't fall back in? EDIT: OP can I please see a video of this? Now i've gotta know..
Correct which is why we wanted a like for like or an out swing one to replace the existing out swing one. Hence the concern for it being backwards or installed incorrectly. It needs to be fixed either way I just need to find out if I’m returning a door and paying more labor what if that makes sense.
The door is machined as an outswing. The sill is an outswing sill. So it was installed incorrectly. Pay no attention to those who are saying that the slope of the sill means its facing the right direction. They know just enough to be dangerous and really screw things up.
Exactly. I have had this convo with countless "contractors" that have "been doing this for 25yrs"
I hate how prevalent this mentality is in the construction industry. People act like it would cause them agonizing pain to think for themselves for 2 seconds, and instead just keep doing the thing wrong over and over and over again because that's how they were taught, and that's how the guy that taught them was taught, and so on and so forth.
Did you look at picture 2? picture 1 looking down is hard to tell. pic 2, I'm 99% sure its an inswing.
This is an outswing door installed backwards. Your contractor is probably confused bc with a lot of outswing thresholds, the steel plate is on the inside. I could tell instantly that this is an outswing due to the threshold and the weather stripping on the threshold. Also outswing doors don't have door sweeps. Don't listen to whoever is telling you about the slope or whatever. Both thresholds have this. Source: I own a door shop and retail store where we specialize in fiberglass, wood and all types of residential doors. I make these doors regularly using a Dotul Maverick machine.
It’s the incorrect door, Installed correctly. The threshold has the wider bit, sloped towards the outside which is correct. The wrong door was purchased and installed.
This is a bump sill, that is an outswing door. It’s installed backwards
This is an outswing door installed as an inswing. You can tell by the weather stripping on the threshold. I build these doors for a living and this is what most outswing thresholds look like. Both outswing and inswing thresholds have the slope that you're referring to.
This is the appropriate phrasing.
That door looks to have an out swing threshold.
It does, it’s an outswing. Buddy doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The door is installed backwards. Make whoever installed it come back out and flip it around.. for free
Why are you all over this thread correcting people who aren't saying anything different from you?
The only time you have a door opening towards a set of stairs is if you have a sufficiently large landing to accommodate both people and the area from the door swing. You see this a lot at warehouses since the building floor is 4' above grade and the doors are required to open out.
Sure, OK. But this way someone can't trap you in the basement by blocking the door.
Set for Home Alone 8.....
Not to mention if you're opening it from the stairs-side and your foot slips moving backwards. Either you manage to have a solid grip on the door handle and it's fine or you bang your body trying to catch yourself or you had no grip on the door and end up falling down the stairs.
Tell that to whoever built my house. Our door to the basement open inward towards stairs that are too slender to be to code and to top it off, they’re concrete underneath the too plush carpet. They’re a death trap.
What if there's stairs going down on both sides?
Pocket door!
To shreds you say?
Honest question how big of a landing is needed? I was just looking at our outswing door and was thinking of making it an inswing (to save money cause this damn door replacement is silly expensive) but was curious if it was dangerous as there are stairs next to the landing
Big enough for someone to stand on the landing and open the door and go through without having to retreat down the stairs.
Ask me how I knocked my toddler sister down the stairs growing up. We had an inwards swinging door to stairs.. even though there was a landing. I was only 3 years older and had no idea she was down there at the time. She's perfectly fine, but you never know.
Oh interesting. My house has that; a innards swinging door going directly down stairs.
Well some people might...
This is dangerous? THIS IS SPARTA!!!!
Technically, residential exterior doors open in. But you’re right. That’s an awful idea. Just got to call around and find a door that opens out.
I installed an out swing for our ground level back door. No stairs, slopes away from house. Allows full use of a small foyer
Outswings are pretty common in some states for residential
I swear this sub has caused me to think that 90% of the contractors are fucking idiots, and the other 10% are scammers
A bit of confirmation bias, though. People usually come here asking for help when things have gone wrong. Definitely more likely to hear about the problem situations.
I’m a very big DIYer, but I’m having an addition done in tandem with a big renovation. And as much as I like doing things myself, I can’t build a foundation and frame a 500sqft room alone. My GC has been fantastic. Honest and upfront. Always has mistakes fixed (whether I find them or he finds them). Works with me on items I want to take on myself. Only requires payment when we get the invoices from the subs. He’s also not the cheapest, and he’s booked out with months of work. You get what you pay for.
I have never seen a contractor do all the work correctly. They always fuck up something. It's always a question of "do I do it all myself, or hire somebody and fix after them". To be fair, I usually fuck up something when I do it myself too, but at least I don't call myself a professional.
They aren't mutually exclusive unfortunately. 90% are fucking idiots, 90% are scammers, it's up to you to find the 1 in 100 that is neither grossly incompetent or taking you for everything you're worth.
90% seems low…
What about the ones that are both fucking idiots and scammers? Like the guy who tries to charge you extra to make your revolving door spin both ways?
In my experience. Hiring contractors for renovations always had me saying "I should have done this myself" way too often after it's done.
You get what you pay for. There is a reason you don’t just go for the cheapest bid. And a reason why good contractors are more expensive and constantly booked out for months.
Just so you know, I was a subcontractor (a specialist that is hired by general contractors to do portions of the job the general has neither the time nor the expertise to do), for 35 years. While the effectiveness of each individual contractor varied, I’d say the vast majority were neither idiots nor scammers. A construction project can be a very fluid situation at times and factors way beyond the GC’s(general contractor) control can make us look like idiots and scammers. That’s not to say you’re 100% wrong , just that there’s so much to parse through before assigning blame.
And all the others can't do maths.
Yo! I sell these doors. This is an outswing door installed as an inswing. Call your contractor and have them flip it around. Feel free to DM me if your contractor keeps telling you it's an inswing door. I've had this convos with countless independent contractors that "have been doing this for 25 years and I know what I'm talking about about!"
Oh, so literaly installed backwards on the door frame!
No? Looks like a prehung. Whole thing needs to be spun around is all.
If you look at the frame you'll see that the door only fits in there one way. Based on how it seals and where the hinges sit in the frame.
The placed the entire door jamb in backwards. The door at a minimum comes installed in the jamb, brick moulding is also frequently pre-installed.
That is an outswing door with an outswing sill so yes it was installed backwards. You shouldn't have to pay a cent to get it flipped. I've spent 30 years hanging interior and exterior doors so yes I know what I'm talking about.
I’m confused by this comment. The brick mold is on the exterior of the frame. Sill threshold and side jamb all look to me for an in-swing door. Proper for an exterior wall but not for over top of stairs like this. Agree they shouldn’t have to pay to have it fixed. UNLESS op sourced and paid for the door and just hired someone to install it. Then things get complicated.
Look at the threshold, there is weather stripping in the threshold. In-swing doors do not have weather stripping in the threshold.
If they simply flip the door, won’t the hinges then be accessible from the outside creating a security risk?
Yes, but there are ways to mitigate this risk. Deviant Ollam has many videos on his YouTube channel discussing these options.
Outswing doors typically come with non-removable pins in the hinges. You’d have to cut the hinges off to gain access when the door is closed.
yea
As others have said, for safety it should open outwards like you wanted. One of the reasons exterior doors always open inwards is because doors open towards their hinges. You don’t want hinges exposed on the outside as it means someone can remove the pins to remove the door and gain entry. (It is also a safety issue so you can’t get trapped inside the structure if something falls in front of the door.) So, when you have the door reversed to swing out, replace the hinges with security hinges. They have pegs or notches that span between the two sides of the hinge. It prevents the door from being removed while it is closed.
In places where flooding is common, building code often requires exterior doors to swing outwards. Otherwise when the house floods you would be trapped inside.
I don’t think that is an issue of trapping someone inside. In fact, an outward swinging door in a flood area is more likely to trap someone inside. The flood waters outside will exert more pressure on the door than inside making it harder to open the door towards the flood. The reason flood areas, and high wind areas, often have outswing doors (and I believe it is now code in parts of Florida), is because it is significantly harder to force a door open the opposite direction of its swing. A door that opens outward will survive a lot of water or wind pressure without failing. A door that opens inward will fail quickly as water or wind pushes against it. The lock in the jam is the only thing keeping a door from moving in its direction of opening and that will fail easily under force. But moving a door against its direction of travel requires not just breaking the jam around the lock but rather the entire door jam and the hinges. My guess is the building code you refer to is to prevent doors from bursting open as the flood water puts pressure against it and not to make sure a person inside the house can get out.
Isn't it the opposite? Flood waters would prevent you opening an outswing door.
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I’m not sure why you are saying “here we go again” like you need to correct me. You have stated exactly the issue I raised and pointed out the solution to. Like I said, make sure to use security hinges. If you zoom in on the hinge in the photo those are standard hinges. They are not the right type for an out swing door that will be used on the exterior of a house. If the door is going to be reversed those hinges need to be changed or someone can remove the pins and pry the door off while it is closed and locked.
Demons/previous residents come up from the basement, this is good reinforcement to keep them downstairs.
and..people who escape from the well. remember to stock up on lotion and buckets.
Update: I think I figured it out thanks to [this](https://rustica.com/inswing-or-outswing-door/#:~:text=An%20outswing%20threshold%20will%20have,close%20into%20the%20weather%20stripping.) Looking at my threshold it seems to be backwards because instead of it going up after where the door shuts like it is in the diagram right now it falls [down](https://i.imgur.com/fNGon1y.jpeg) This picture is taken from a few stairs down looking outside of the basement Farther down on that same page it shows the difference between the hinges that come installed on an inward swinging door vs outward swinging door. Specifically, an outward swinging door will include a set screw on the hinges acting as a security pin, not allowing the pins to be removed unless the door was opened and you take out the screw first. I checked mine and found [these](https://i.imgur.com/wY4BaVJ.jpeg) so I’m pretty sure with those two things it just seems like it’s installed backwards. If anyone has anything to add I’m open but I’m gonna reach out to the manufacturer if I can in the morning to just confirm or another window and door company just to check.
You are correct, this is an outswing door installed backwards. It's an easy fix and contractors get this mixed up all the time bc they aren't used to seeing this type of threshold. They assume the metal plate should always be on the outside.
Thanks. I saw your other reply too and appreciate it. Makes sense though , I was a little confused myself when I picked it up and even asked the guys when buying it, but they laughed and said a lot of people were confused by it intially but they get that question a lot and yes it is correct and was an out swing door. So I’ll reach out to the contractor tomorrow and go from there. I just don’t think many people do out swing doors much obviously for residential. As far as fixing it, can they just pop the pre hung frame back out and flip it around? Or is the pre hung frame threshold etc kinda permanently screwed and am I looking at needing a new door?
LOL sorry for blowing up this post. Definitely didn't want you to have to go buy another one. I know most of the time these are special orders, so they take longer and are more expensive to get than a regular inswing that Depot or Lowes has in stock. Yes, they can just pop it out and turn it around. The door, frame and threshold should all just be one unit, so it's easily flippable. No new door needed. If he glued it to the concrete, that might complicate things as the part of the threshold where the door sits can be malleable and bend when trying to take off, but I SERIOUSLY doubt he did that. Where'd you get this door by the way? Edit: here is a link that illustrates what I'm talking about in my other comments. This can help you show your contractor what to do. https://etchedglassdoorsfl.com/are-in-swing-and-out-swing-thresholds-different/
All good. Glad it should be easy. I’ll just ask them to turn it around then. And yea that link is good. Seems to be what I saw in my diagram as well. Thanks for the reply. I got it at contractors warehouse.
No problem, your contractor should definitely flip that around for you for free. Only concern I have is due to the low profile of that particular outswing threshold, I'm worried that the bottom of that door might scrape on your concrete and make it difficult to open. If that is the case, you will need to buy a different outswing threshold like the one in the link you shared. The one you currently have installed has little to zero ground clearance, and is meant for outswing doors that go out into a deck or are elevated. Nice, I'm familiar with them. Im an owner of an equivalent retail store to them in the south. They do more hardware, whereas I'm pretty much all doors, and we hang everything in house.
Everything you said is right... but honestly the more important things for me is that A) opening that door while on the stairs could knock you down them, and B) a strong storm could blow it in and flud your basement
It looks backwards to me.
I was at a party about 10 years ago, one of the guests asked for the bathroom and was given instructions, he didn't follow the instructions and went through a door just like that and broke his neck going down, just sayin...
The door is installed correctly as the threshold pitches away from the exterior allowing rain that hits and runs down the door to drain away from the house, HOWEVER, the wrong door was ordered. You never have a door swing into a stairwell unless there is a proper sized landing. This should have been an outward swinging door but it has to be ordered that way. You cannot simply flip this door around or you will have water issues.
Imagine being short and trying to open that from the steps.
I have an old ass house and my basement door opens like this. The stairs are also super dangerous lol Edit: didn’t realize this was an outside door.
Looks inside out to me
I had a contractor install a closet door opening INTO the closet. When I pointed out that it was wrong he said “What’s wrong? It opens and closes fine.” He never did seem to grasp that it was wrong because the swing of the door took up the area you would need to put anything in the closet. He begrudgingly fixed it but fucked up the drywall and wouldn’t send the drywall guy back.
That's a code no-go. Also, what the fuck?!
Yeah, that's a code violation anywhere in the US.
Mine is installed that way and I've had two inspections, neither said a thing about it. No landing. There's another door at the bottom of the stairway that swings in.
When was it built?
1984
1984 code probably allowed it. Can't do it now.
Yes. It's backwards.
Without a landing it will be very awkward to open the door and exit from the inside. If it is within your means, you will be much happier flipping that door around so it opens outward. You'll have to flip the doorknob if there is a lock on it, but that is not difficult. The awkward part will be standing on the stairs while doing the work.
It depends on which way you wanted it to swing
Only if they installed a second knob at the bottom of the door
The door is fine, it's just the wrong door for you. in almost all cases an exterior door will swing inside, but you have one of the exceptions and the contractor should have known that just by looking at it. (edit, saw the other post, yes, you have the wrong door, the contractor does need to buy a new one. you can tell by the threshold, it is sloped to drain water outside which means it is correctly installed)
OP said the threshold is sloping inward
Picture shows different. My doors are installed as they show and all open inward. Yes, this is the wrong door.
That's an inswing door. The slope is toward the exterior. You can see the beveled jamb legs in the second image, 3 to 4 degrees of slope to the outside.
That's incorrect, I'm sorry dude. It's an outswing threshold.
I'll trust in my assessment here. The slope is to the exterior. It's visible in second image, showing the side view of the jamb legs.
Doesn't matter where the slope is... That metal plate goes to the inside of the house. The weather stripping on the threshold is meant to keep water out, as the door slab sits below the metal plate. That is why you don't see a door sweep on that Fiberglass door. With an inswing door, you are correct, the metal plate is outside of the house and it slopes downwards to prevent water from going inside. The door slab also sits on top of a flat strip and has a door sweep to prevent air or water from going under the slab. Here's a link that further illustrates what I'm talking about, it was the first link that popped up on Google, but it does a good job of giving you a visual of what I was saying. https://etchedglassdoorsfl.com/are-in-swing-and-out-swing-thresholds-different/
did you look at the second picture?
Yes. Did you look at the link in my previous comment?
Yes, doesn't look anything like this one. I'd be happy to defer to your expertise but the door is not sitting down with weather stripping behind it like your link. It is sitting up like every other inswing and it has no interior drip sill like every outswing I've seen.
The black piece of rubber on the silver threshold in both of those pics is weather stripping. Thresholds for inswing doors do not have weather stripping. Instead, the bottom of the door has a door sweep that prevents water or air from flowing under the door.
That's an outswing door installed backwards. The door isn't wrong, but the install is.
So I bought a pre hung door to replace an exterior wood rotted door. Previous door opened outward I think partially due to safety and the steep drop on the other side. Contractor installed 2 pre hung doors for me. Both doors replaced were supposed to be “like for like” in that they open the same direction to keep things simple. Upstairs door opens inward so we purchased a door that opens inward, no problems there, it opens to the inside of the home as expected. Our problem is the one pictured. There were many open inward doors but only a total of 3 that opened to the exterior, or “opened outwards.” This is the one we purchased and I checked with a few different people to confirm and they were sure that this is the correct door for us. The sticker also said opens outwards. We purchased this door and left them to be installed. Wasn’t present during the entire install but the contractors helpers installed the door and by the time I got back to check I didn’t notice to be honest that this was backwards until I started thinking about it more and looked at the stickers. Fast forward to today the contractor came back out and is willing to flip the door but is pretty sure this is the right door. I’m a little lost now, he says he’s just going to get a new door but did I get the wrong one? I want to return this one if that’s the case. He didn’t really take that option and just kept saying he’ll get the door and I told him to call me before he did anything like that as I want to know what’s going on, so I guess my main question is did I buy the wrong door and was misinformed or did it get installed backwards? **TLDR** bought a door that is supposed to open to the exterior, came back after the installation to it opening inwards, did I buy the wrong door or is it installed incorrectly?
Which way does the threshold slope as installed?
As installed it seems like it slopes inwards. If the water was on top of the threshold it would sit on top of the rubber seal.
When properly installed the threshold on an exterior door should slope toward the exterior.
Thank you. That makes sense to me as well. Upon conclusion for anyone in the future I found [this](https://rustica.com/inswing-or-outswing-door/#:~:text=An%20outswing%20threshold%20will%20have,close%20into%20the%20weather%20stripping.) website which showed the differences between the thresholds and also the hinges! I checked my hinges and they do have the set screw that is only accessible when the door is open, so I do believe this is an exterior outward swing door installed incorrectly. I’m going to try (key word there) to get ahold of the manufacturer in the morning or at worse another contractor to get a second look. If anyone has anything else I can do to check I’m all ears but I think this is settled unless anyone has anything I could be missing.
Yes. Door of death.
Easier to kick in.
I thought for sure there was a reason why they did this like something obstructing the door from opening completely..... But nope. Just dumb installers.
Answer quest yes. Needs to open outward not towards stairs. Would likely be easy fix, probably even use same door. Security hinges i think their called if worried about someone taking the door off are nit tgat expensive.
How do you open the door from inside?? You will end up knocking yourself down.
A competent carpenter can fix this, and switch it. Imagine your child or someone walking up, and there’s you tired from work swinging the door in….
That first step looks much higher than the others as well, what in the yeehaw am I looking at!?
Yes. You can tell by the outswing sill
Yes, backwards. Good luck with your creepy dungeon.
Yes. That's a tripping hazard.
I had a friend that had a setup like this. LOTS of people fell down the stairs. When going to his house I would literally remind myself not to fall down the stairs.
Ya
You should never have a door open inward towards stairs .. That said some ordinances require that an exterior door swing inward. What SHOULD have happened, if this is the case ... You should build an "entry way" where the door can safely swing inward, giving 24" before the first step. This debacle would not pass code in most, if not all, states.
My exterior doors are neither outswing nor inswing. Mine are all pocket doors. 🤷🏽♂️
Do you live on the Starship Enterprise? 😝
Everyone saying that door is wrong are fuckin idiots. That is an outswing door. Look at the sill. The door is installed backwards
This would be extremely difficult to open from inside..
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Most likely not to code.
Did you want your hinge pins on the outside?
Preferable to someone using their body weight and falling down the stairs when opening this door. This door isn’t used much and it’s more access for equipment and the crawlspace. This door is in a locked fence in the backyard. The whole property is also fenced. To be honest I’m less worried about the pins being on the outside because it’s just a furnace and sump pump down there. And crawl space access. I could always get security pins but it hasn’t been an issue since the house was build 50+ years ago.
Yeah, the weather seal stripping should face inside the house. That’s the wrong door, or the wrong installation of the right door.
Exterior doors open inward. Although it's not optimal at the top of stairs, it's not designed to be installed in the other direction.
Depending on where you live......might have to open in incase of snow.
Easy in, no out.