Rain flooding through new external door

[BlogOnTheTyne]

Yesterday, during a freak torrential rain storm, rain water literally gushed through the seal around a new external door (garage conversion). We're talking a massive wave of water that poured into the closed door, from a gutter across the whole side of the building and just from the sheer power of the prevailing wind and rain.

Enough water flooded across the floor again and again, to saturate 3 huge bath towels, 2 rugs and several rolls of kitchen paper, within seconds.

Should this happen through a closed external door - even though I appreciate the weather has been really freaky recently?

I don't know if this is related to faulty fitting of the new door by our builders or whether you just expect this from time to time, in any external door?

Can I pursue the builders to do a better door seal? During the building process, we had at least one leak from the closed door, in a less strong rain shower. So the builders at that point added a rubber draught excluder seal around the door and said there'd be no further issues.

On the other hand, is this problem not really related to the door seal but to do with the way the guttering goes across the length of the side of the building, over the door and when it overflows and the wind's blowing in a certain direction, rain water is pushed through the door seal? If it's a guttering issue and the new living space needs a canopy or porch built across the door, would that be deemed a different project?

I am absolutely out of money, following the building project and have no idea how much it'd cost to build a canopy or porch above the new door but I expect this is needed. What kind of canopies would work for this problem and prevent further rain ingress through a closed door?

Bumping...anyone?

Do external doors leak when it rains?

Would my builders be liable to fix this?

Is it entirely the fault of where the guttering is placed over a door without a porch or canopy????

Our door doesn't. Ours came with a ten year guarantee by the installer. Even if yours doesn't have a guarantee I think it would be reasonable to ask them to come back. It might just need some adjustment/resealing.

If there is a freakish amount of water any guttering will be overun but water shouldn't be coming in through your door it means it's not sealed properly. What sort of door is it? Plastic, wood? I am not a builder but we have this problem with our front door when there's a storm and the wind is blowing very hard but it's an very old wooden door. The new upvc ones at the back are watertight.

Your door shouldn't be doing this especially to the degree described.

Our external door has a gutter that runs just above it which via a few other down pipes connections takes the majority of our main roof rainwater. This door has no overhang and due to it's orientation often gets pelted in the rain/wind - it doesn't leak (believe me it's been tested recently)

Sounds like a few things going wrong in combination - incorrectly fitted door & frame, incorrectly sized gutter.

What kind of door is it?
Our timber door doesn't have any 'seals' - it fits snugly in its timber frame and has an additional fitted threshold.
The threshold creates a small lip to prevent water ingress underneath the door, the frame prevents ingress around the sides and as additional protection to the bottom of the door has a weatherboard to shrug off the worst of the rain.

If the gutter is regularly dumping water over the sides it sounds like it is either blocked or undersized.

If it's been recently installed I'd be getting them back to do it properly. In our old house the problem with our door was because the builders had put in the wrong frame for the door.

Is this the door that was fitted opening out?

PigletJohn, the door was re-fitted to open in, after I got lots of support on here from you and others. It then leaked so they put a rubber daught seal around it. It's not exactly flush at the top corner and juts out about 2 millimetres on the opening side.

However, it hadn't leaked since the first leak until yesterday but now I'm worried that as rain is due again from now, it's going to leak again!

The builders haven't replied to my email about the flood from the door. You'll know from my other thread that they came back for the fourth time recently to fix the leaking waste pipe in the new toilet. They still used a 'concertined' waste pipe, rather than what I'd recommended them via your helpful support but at least it doesn't now seem to be leaking...which is more than can be said for the door!

The door is also opposite the side of a car port which has it's own guttering too - a distance of about 90cms away. So a porch or canopy would have to fit right across the gap and rain water flow into the guttering along both the car port and the house roof.

There's a weatherboard at the foot of the door, Wonkylegs - but no 'threshold' as depicted in your helpful link - thanks.

The door is solid wood and I was told was v good quality and has a small upper panel of semicircular panes of glass at the top.

The builders are thoroughly fed up with me and the job as they've had to keep coming back and I've already paid everyhting in full about 7 weeks ago.

I'll have to steel myself and contact them again and persist. It takes up so much time and energy and I'm working flat our fulltime days and evenings and Saturdays now - so not easy to arrange a time for them to come, expecially as I'm working form this new room, seeing business clients etc all day long!

It sounds like the unanimous advice is that an external door shouldn't leak, no matter whether there's a porch or not. So I feel on stronger ground to tackle the builders but not looking forward to it!

is it coming in under the bottom? has it got a weatherbar?

can you see what size the guttering is? there is a small size, for a carport, and a bigger size, for a house.

there is a type of draught excluder you pin to the frame, it has a rubber fin to press on the door, it could help. You can have a waterbar fitted to the threshold, though it would involve rebating the bottom of the door.

You might like to ask around for recommendations of a good local joiner to take a look, you can expect him to know a lot more about doors and frames than your builders seem to and it could be worth paying him to deal with it.