Just curious

[lowell holmes]

I was looking at entrance doors on line for some reason and saw raised panel doors.
We have an entrance door that I made to replace one that had panels split due to hot August sun.

I thought I might share what I did to prevent it from happening again.
I made the panels two interior and exterior panels separated with plastic sheet allowing the panels to expand independent of each other.
It has not re-occurred.

[Al Launier]

An interesting idea, but wouldn't the panels move without a plastic sheet between them? Or, had you glued them together?

[bridger berdel]

Lowell, does your door receive direct summer sun? I see you are in Texas, so that sun could be pretty intense. If you run air conditioning indoors I'm not surprised that that door took a beating. Clever solution.

[lowell holmes]

It does see direct summer sun. It has not split again. I was able to reuse the three leaded glass panels in the upper portion of the door.

If any of you have similar issues, doors are fun to make and every time you go through it, you feel good about it. In my younger days, I built about 20 houses and sold them. I made doors for four or five of them. The Texas August sun is destructive to panel doors.

I was not sure my solution would work, so I made separate panels instead.

Front entrance doors are expensive and on my experience do not hold up well.

https://www.google.com/search?q=entrance+doors&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6tJyLspjgAhVCT6wKHQSUCaUQ_AUIDygC&biw=1280&bih=625

[Jim Koepke]

[edited]

https://www.google.com/search?q=entrance+doors&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6tJyLspjgAhVCT6wKHQSUCaUQ_AUIDygC&biw=1280&bih=625

So, which one is yours? :D

jtk

[Mel Fulks]

I've seen that treatment in specs, and done them that way. The plastic might provide a "lube" to make the panels move
more easily. Doors made from conifers should have the bark side to the weather ,so the plastic will certainly obviate
any chance of the panels being locked together by protruding grain ,and allow them to move independently. I had not
thought of that before, the heart side of fir can be like razor blades bent upward.

[Andrew Seemann]

The key is probably the plastic serving as a vapor barrier between inside and out. The inside and outside humidity aren't competing to size the the panel larger and smaller at the same time and vice versa.