While robust materials like steel and aluminum and security-boosting hardware are highly important for your security door, it is also important that they have some level of weather resistance. This is especially important for exterior doors, which are required to face the elements while maintaining their structural integrity. One of the best ways to ensure your door can withstand high and low temperatures, as well as moisture and strong winds is via the installation of weather seals.
What are Full Weather Seals?
Also known as full weatherstripping, full weather seals are comprehensive sealing solutions designed to protect buildings, vehicles, and enclosures from air leaks, water, dust, noise, and temperature extremes. They can be used on anything from doors and windows to industrial equipment enclosures. They typically consist of:
Door Bottom Seals: These prevent drafts, pests or water from passing under the door. When combined with door sweeps it can create a 360 degree barrier that blocks air, moisture, light, insects, and noise.
Tension seals: They form the backbone of the side and top seals, where precise door positioning matters most.
Perimeter Seals: These seals are found at the sides, corners and top of the door or window. The majority of perimeter weather door seals are installed directly on or inside the door jamb.
Thresholds: Raised surfaces on the floor under the door that combine with bottom seals in order to block water or air.
Gasket Seals: Usually found in vehicles or windows, these are made of flexible rubber or silicone.
Compression or Bulb Seals: These are used where two surfaces, such as car trunk lids, meet and compress when closed to form a seal
When applied to a steel security door, the full weather seal aims to combine maximum levels of weather resistance with high-level physical security. Weather-sealed security systems are normal installed in residential, commercial, and industrial settings where both durability and protection are paramount.
Advantages of Adding New Weatherstripping to Your Security Door
Weatherstripping is an invaluable tool when it comes to ensuring that your security door is able to do its its job in protecting people and resources from intruders. As well as the many weather protection benefits they bring, they can also further bolster the security of your steel door.
Supreme Protection Against Weather and the Elements
The most obvious and important benefit of a full weather sealant is the amount of protection they offer from the environment. This is especially key if your exterior security door is located in an exposed climate. Weather stripping enables a door to resist moisture, preventing rust on the metal door frames or hinges, which can cause cracking and other signs of wear. In areas of high wind, where negative pressure can pull air, dust or water through tiny gaps, compression weatherstripping (consisting of materials such as rubber or silicone) both absorbs and resists wind-driven access into houses or offices.
Reduces Door Frame Warping and Shifting
When installed correctly full weather seals reduce temperature driven door frame expansion and contraction by neutralizing the internal climate. They also help to maintain the squareness and alignment of the door-frame interface over longer periods of time, which is vital for proper locking and security.
Energy Efficiency
Cold air leaking through gaps around a door accounts for 30% of energy loss in homes and buildings. Having weatherstripping helps to close the perimeter gaps around the security door. This subsequently blocks drafts and significantly decreases the loss of heated or cooled conditioned air, resulting in a reduction in energy bills in both the short and long-term.
Weatherstripping Improves Fire and Smoke Resistance
Providing the seals are made from fire and smoke-resistant materials, weatherstripping can play a role in enhancing fire safety, particularly when used on security doors. Metal weatherstripping, often used in conjunction with steel doors, is often UL-rated meaning it is fire and smoke resistant. Other smoke-rated weatherstripping is made from non-combustible, hardy materials such as silicone, neoprene, or special brush seals. Attaching seals closes small perimeter gaps around the door, especially at the top and the sides, where smoke can seep through.
Some fire rated full weather seals contain intumescent material which swells when exposed to temperatures as high as 250-300°F. The seal’s expansion helps to fill gaps around the door’s edges to form a charred, heat resistant barrier, and blocks any remaining spaces that would otherwise allow fire or hot gases through.
Preserves and Enhances Existing Security Measures
A fully sealed steel security door is considerably harder to breach both visually and physically. The tightness of the seals reinforces the door’s fit, reducing the chances of any visible gaps showing up. It also enhances lock alignment, ensuring that deadbolts, door jambs and multi-point locks engage securely, and maintains door frame integrity, an essential factor in a security door being durable eough to resist forced access. By eliminating weak points around the door’s perimeter, weatherstripping deters tampering by would-be intruders, giving you additional peace of mind.
When Should You Replace Your Old Weatherstripping?
Steel door weatherstripping should have a lifespan of at least several years without experiencing significant wear and tear. With regular inspections it should be easy to notice when your door requires the installation of new weatherstripping. Seals that are cracked, torn or are harboring crumbling debris are a sign that the product has lost the ability to compress properly or is no longer making regular contact with the door itself. Any light or air gaps around the perimeter of the seal also point to the conclusion that it has failed and needs removing. If you are unsure, wait until dark and test it with a flashlight; if light is shining through from the outside, it means the seal needs changing.
Our Weather Seals
All of our doors, including our fire-rated and fire exit doors, come with pre-installed full weather seals to all four sides of the frame to ensure that you have the best protection from the elements as well as maximum security for your home, business or other facility. Contact a member of our expert and friendly team today and we’ll help you find the door to suit your needs, whatever the weather.
