Mobile Home Repairs

Recently I purchased a 'mobile home'. I have not owned one in over 25 years but I fell in love with this one. It was 20 years old, had a beautiful new kitchen, nice new second bath, and new windows. It needed a new front door, master bath, and roof. There was a missing support post in the car port as well. In fact the one end of the car port had been bolted onto the house and all of the lag bolts had pulled out! I put in the support post first thing to keep if from falling down under the weight of the snow.

Then things started to get strange. Homeowners insurance for a mobile home is hard to get, especially if it is over 20 years old! Imagine if they treated houses like that? The front door is 2 inches shorter than a standard door! STRANGE! Why would they do that?

So I checked into buying a ‘proper’ front door, its $450 for another junky door plus another $400 for installation! So I went to Bargain Outlet and picked up a normal sized steel door with an arching window in it for $150 instead. I figured I could just cut 2 inches off it. After measuring several times I concluded that I should cut 2.5 inches off it and that was correct. The first problem was that my jig saw blade was not long enough to cut through the door. I had to mark it and cut it on both sides. Then the frame had to be cut off too. The frame would not go back together until I also cut the door jam like the piece I cut off so it fit together properly. Then the screen door had the same problem! So I found a solid core screen door and cut 2.5 inches off it as well.

Here is what the old door looked like.  It was coming apart because the glue that held it together was no longer working, the bottom of it fell out alltogether.

Here is what the new door looks like.  To the right are the 2 1/2 inch pieces that were cut off the bottom of the new door and the screen door.