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The bottom of my water heater door rotted away so bad the bottom door frame would fall out when the door was opened. I thought the door was made from a sheet of plywood, I should have known better. I removed the door frames and skins, removed the rotted part and built a new section of frame. Cost $0 ! Wives, this is why us men never throw scrap wood away...

Chris

Hi,

Good job...LOL, yup, my hubby never throws away scrap wood either, or anything else for that matter.

Yanita

OK I can see a MAJOR can of worms about to be opened here! Greg

Dang! I often thought if I put an outside door to access the water heater it would solve a lot of problems. Unfortunatly there's wiring in the way so don't know how I'd do it. (2 runs of wiring run 12in. above the floor in the outside wall where the door would have to go) I guess I could still do it..just have to step over the wires...hmmm? Anyways, excellent post! And a possible reminder of why I shouldn't have done what I did this past 3 days!! I cleaned out my garage...I mean really cleaned it out! I started a burn-pile on Fri. afternoon and it's still burning!! Local "pack-rats" (Salvage&Scrap Metal Scroungers) came an hauled away 3 truck loads of stuff. Old riding mowers, snow-blowers, roto-tillers, pipe, buckets of nuts/bolts and hardware, sheet metal, copper wire, etc. etc. etc. The remainder I burned. Yup....I'm gonn'a regret this. Audie..the Oldfart.....

Greg,

What is the major can of worms...as I look at the pics it seems the orginal poster rebuilt the door close to the orginal...or are you refering to something else?

Yanita

Maybe the scabbing on that was done on the side frame pieces? This will weaken the bottom of the door if not attached securely.

I was refering to those (of us) that save about everything. Greg

flcruising wrote:Maybe the scabbing on that was done on the side frame pieces? This will weaken the bottom of the door if not attached securely.

The replacement frame section is glued, screwed and stapled (just like the factory!) and the metal frame provides structural rigidity. I think the reason it rotted in the first place is the metal frame surrounding the door panel is U-shaped and not sealed to the door allowing water to sit in the bottom channel. I caulked the outside of the door to frame joint so it won't happen again.

Chris