There's not many people who convert box trucks who put their door in the side - which seemed odd to me. People almost always put the door on the roll-up door wall. Then it dawned on me that maybe people, like I was, were intimidated to cut through the metal and go through the pain of putting in a door with metal walls.
Now that I've done it, I understand that it is a real frustrating part of the process, but I think much better for design in the long run. If you're choosing to put a door in on the side, then this post is for you!
The first time I cut through the metal was to cut the rough opening for my door, which ended up being close to the entire height of the wall.
I ended up buying a solid wood door at a building material recycling place for $75 (a total steal). I bought a solid wood door instead of metal because I knew I had to cut the door down to a smaller size so that it could fit inside the wall.
All doors are more or less designed for 8ft tall ceilings, and the inside of my truck was only 7ft. Remember you need to compensate for not only a header plate, a base plate, but also what the width of your flooring will be so that everything ends up level and plumb with each other. (the floor is the floor studs, insulation if it sticks up past the studs, OSB or plywood, and the width of your actual flooring. Remember underlayment width if you go with laminate.)
If you decide to build your own door jamb like I did, remember you will also need to compensate for the door threshold, and the water blocking/plate cover you put onto the bottom of your door.
You also need to make sure you leave enough space on the top of the door and the sides so that it can swing freely.
To be honest this project took the most time (two-three grueling weeks because of trial and error), and I wished I had bought a pre-hung door instead. (even though you'd have to take apart the top part and cut everything down to size. It would have been much faster and easier.)
I would highly recommend looking up as much as you can about framing an external door before you cut the metal. I made sure to cut the hole large enough so that the door would move freely, but also gives you space to add shims and level the door once you get it in. The width of my door is 28 inches [I went with a smaller one - I love the width now] and I cut the hole at about 31 inches wide.
First step - prepping the metal!
As you can see I have no waterproofing barrier where i'm cutting, and I started with a rough area cut where I wanted the door to be. The parts of the studs on the bottom i'll cut down the rest of the way when I have a hole through the wall so I can see from the outside.
In this photo I had gone through from the outside and cut through the studs so they were as flat as possible with the flooring stud below the door. You want this to be flat so you can place your base plate for the door on top of that. After I cut the studs down, I went back with a grinding blade with my angle grinder and flattened them all out level with the concrete and floor stud.
There is a metal header that runs throughout the truck, at about the height of 6ft 8inch. This is the same place where I put the headers for all my wall studs.
I wanted the top plate for my door to be underneath that, instead of cutting through the metal header and bolting my top plate through the ceiling. I felt it would be stronger to leave the metal header - in the end this worked out well.
Cutting the end piece of studs right below that header was awful though. Sparks flying all around, hard to get the right angles, ect. At this point is when I wore a full motorcycle helmet, pants, leather jacket, and gloves. In my last post I talked about safety gear while cutting - this is the point where you need it! (This is when you need the face guard as an extra I mean.)
I used a 2 x 6 for my baseplate. Originally I used a 1 x 6 but didn't think it would compensate enough for the flooring height I needed to reach. In the end I think going with a 1 x 6 would have worked well since it's already supported beneath it.
After I screwed down my base plate, I threw up my kings studs along the sides of the metal. Where you place these is very important, so make sure you leave enough room between the king studs for:
*the door width
*the wood jamb around your door (I used 1 x 4s)
*A little extra space between the kings studs and the door jamb so you can add shims to level it off (and add spray foam in eventually.)
That might sound a little complex, but I figured out the width I needed between my king studs by framing my door on the ground outside, with my hinges I chiseled in, and then measured the whole thing. If you frame out the door on the ground, make sure to add extra space between the door itself and the wood framing so that it can move freely. This is about 1/8th of an inch
Because my door was pretty heavy, I framed it on the ground and chiseled out the hinges, and then attached the framing unto the king studs inside the truck. This wasn't the easiest way to frame the door, but it allowed me to really adjust the jamb framing with the king studs instead of holding the door at the same time.
Once my jamb was set with my king studs, and I took the door in and out a couple times to check the swing and space, I screwed into the king studs from the outside a 2 x 4 to hold the door in place while I screwed it into the hinges.
That 1 x 4 at the bottom shows there's a lot of space at the bottom of the door. I still have to put in a threshold and watercover! This ended up not being enough space for the door cover and threshold, so I had to chisel away the base plate to fit them both. A 1 x 4 would have been almost perfect I think.
The door is swinging freely!
You can see here the ducktape on the edges, the door jamb with part of the king studs, and the spray foam I added in. In this photo I had already added the threshold (low profile), door water guard, and trimmed the spray foam.
Once you get the door up and it moves freely, now it's time to add the spray foam. You absolutely have to wear gloves when using spray foam, and it expands to almost 3x the size so keep that in mind. You'll have to trim the edges flat after it sets up in a couple hours, but this will waterproof all that extra space between your door jamb and king studs.
The trim you choose should be wide enough to cover all of the wood and metal, and come up flush to the edge of the inside of your door. The trim was a trial and error project for me as I cut the trim and had open spaces between the trim that couldn't be covered up with paint. I kept some of that spray foam trimmings I had left over and filled in the holes with that, then covered it in paintable caulking. This filled up larger holes perfectly, and ended up being covered with the paint really nicely.
Before I painted the trim, I sealed all the edges of the outside trim with the same paintable waterproof external caulking, and let it set. This created a waterproof seal everywhere around the wood before I covered it with external paint.
I would have bought a UV-proof caulking, but I was planning to paint around the edges of trim so this worked really well.
I bought some cheap waterproof sealing rubber trim as well, and added this to both sides of the door and the top, nailing it into the door jamb- it has worked perfect so far, even in a downpour.
Marine Waterproof rubber strips - any waterproof rubber stripping.
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So there we go! I finally have a door in the side, so I can now pull down my roll-up door permanently and frame into it, making my kitchen wall.
If you have any extra questions, don't be afraid to ask. There was a lot of little extra steps I didn't include because hopefully you won't have those issues (operator error on my part I think).
Anyway thank you for reading and next time I'll be talking about my large window! Till next time.
Love,
Kelli
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Update: Feb 27, 2022
The door still stands, but the trim didn't. Make sure you use the right type of trim - if it's outside, it has to be pressure-treated wood. I like the new trim more anyway.
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