Reversing Doors for Total Dummies

Door terminology

Some people clearly don't care how stupid they look, as long as they collect their pennies; assuming they even know how stupid they look, that is. We've long suspected that serial dumbass Naima Manal just plain has no idea how boneheaded some of her content appears (maybe all of her content, we haven't read everything), but she is an exceptionally rich source of dumbass posts. Today, she's here to share her vast expertise on the topic of doors, which our research team caught in an eHow (now Hunker.com) post titled "How to Make a Bathroom Door Swing Out."¹

We doubt that, before her cursory research, Manal had any knowledge on the topic and we're pretty sure that after finishing, she had about the same: she wouldn't know an inswing if it hit her in the butt. Basically, Naima's solution is to pull all the hardware and remount it, reversed (though she doesn't actually mentioning the reversal part) on the opposite side of the stop molding (which she – incorrectly – calls a "doorstop").

Naima's so-called "solution" to the question comprises nineteen steps. A more realistic solution is just three steps: Remove the existing door and jamb Buy a pre-hung outswing door. Install the new jamb and door. If you do were to follow Manal's 19-step instructions, you'd end up with a couple of problems: The old hinge mortises and bore for the bolt are left exposed - she doesn't mention covering them. Naima's method assumes that the hinge mortises reach completely across the the door stile, since she blithely instructs you to "Screw the hinges back onto the door," while saying nothing about reversing them or re-cutting the mortises. Few hinges are that wide, Naima. You make one hell of a mess pulling off the stop molding, and leave an unfinished strip exposed where it was before being reversed and reinstalled It's easy to tell where Manal simply reworded instructions she found at DIY sites: she has detailed instructions (86 words!) on how to chisel out a mortise; yet other instructions aren't as clear: "Drill pilot holes into the doorjamb with a small drill, where the screws will go." A "small drill," eh? What a dumbass... She's also somewhat laconic about re-installing the stop molding, simply saying, "The door stops are going to be completely turned around from their original position..."

While we're at it, we couldn't quite figure out whether Ms Manal intended her readers to switch the door from, say, right inswing to right outswing, or reverse it entirely; say, from right inswing to left outswing. If the latter, her instructions are even less nearly complete, since doing so would require reversing the lockset to keep the privacy lock on the inside knob and put the bevel of the bolt on the inner surface. She didn't mention that. though.

No, Naima is – as usual – a dumbass, yet she somehow managed to fool the other dumbasses at eHow into paying her for this bullshit. Once more, we wish we could award the Dumbass of the Day to whomever let this rubbish be published!
¹ The original has been deleted by Leaf Group, but can still be accessed using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   ehow.com/how_12095295_make-bathroom-door-swing-out.html

copyright © 2015-2022 scmrak

DDIY - DOORS