Teardrops n Tiny Travel Trailers

I’m planning my doors and was thinking leaving .060 of space between door frame and door edge. Does that seam a reasonable amount of clearance?

Thanks
John

I hope someone with more specific experience chimes in but here is my $.02

The major factor would be the door thickness. While the door is closing, the back edge of the door at the latch side will be closer to the door frame due to the angle until it fully seats parallel to the wall. The thicker the door the larger the gap needs to be.

Then you have potential for any minor expansion/shrinking/bowing of the material from humidity and temperature changes. Everything moves a little, how much just depends on the material. So if it is dry and cool where being built and the door just barely clears without rubbing; you could easily end up with a rubbing or sticking door when it has been out in the humidity for weeks and the sun is beating down on it. Might err on the side of giving a little extra gap if it is close. 1/16" seems pretty small to me for any door that must weather the elements.

A sixteenth of an inch is awful skinny. Even with so-called zero-play hinges...

And then add epoxy and a coat or two of spar varnish over the top of it...

Tony

I found .1875 each side here; mine is tighter & to tight.

You need to consider thermal expansion if you want very tight joints. I assume you are doing a flush door.

Another thing to consider is drainage at the bottom of the door. I started with a 5 degree slope on the sill and a 1/8" gap. Water would pool there due to surface tension. I had to cut another 1/4 off the bottom to give a big enough gap so water would drain/dry.

When I do the next one, I'll eliminate the bottom sill altogether and run the door right to the bottom of wall.

Thank you for the replies. I'm thinking I'll increase the offset clearance from the frame to be .150". Hopefully that will not cause any tight fitting with what ever expansion may occur .... and yet still leave enough contact between the door and the seals.

John

Build a small mock-up to see if it meets your expectations.
Models and tests can be very valuable.

Initially, I cut my opening too tight, and had to reduce the size of the door after the fact, because I didn't know my final assembly with door trim, opening trim, lockset strike plate, etc. As you know, even though cutting the door down in size was tricky, it was easier than have to make it larger. (I figured making the door smaller was less work than making the opening larger.) This is a "post construction" sketch I made of the door section that I wished I had done before I cut the door from the sidewall.



By the way, I don't know your intended method of placing the seal(s) and/or door trim, but I offset the plane of the door 1/8" "proud" of the plane of the sidewall to give space for the outer door seal.



Lastly, it doesn't show on the above sketches, but I created an inner door jamb and epoxied the outer side to weatherproof it. Also, the outer door seal was all I ever installed. The inner seal was not necessary.

Lastly here pics with door open, showing the t-molding and weatherseal and inner door jamb, and with the door closed, showing the hinges and lockset.

Thanks for the follow up, aggie79. I must have been looking through your build thread at some point recently as I do remember seeing that sketch you posted.

I had, just this morning, posted on my build thread some photos of a mock up I had made to check for clearances and all that. Hopefully, I've got it right.
Tomorrow I'm having the door slabs CNCd.
Beautiful teardrop you have there, BTW.

John

I have flush fit thick doors (foam filled) with no trim on the outside. I targeted 1/4 inch gap after all glass work and they swing thru fine. To my eye it was more important to make the gap uniform all the way around the door (including the corner radii), than it was to keep the gap microscopic, or to have trim protruding out.

I think that's tight, you need some room for the trailer to move, breath, expand, contract, bend, warp, twist.
3/16-1/4" is typical in house doors, I think 1/8" would be cutting it close but fine, 1/16th is way to tight.