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Sliding Glass door leak.....

37K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  kwikfishron 
#1 ·
I have an older aluminum sliding glass door made by Lumidor. When we get heavy blowing rains against the door I get water inside.

It appears that the holes in the drain tracks are just draining under the bottom track and into the house. I do not see anywhere on the outside of the house that the tracks could drain....

A little background, I bought the house this year with a lots of remodeling, House was built in 68. They changed all windows / doors, except the slider. A back deck was added over the concrete slab walking out the slider.

Inside the house walking up to the slider is tile .. .and to the right is carpet. So the water seems to come in where the tile meets the lip to the slider, then the tile grout pushes the water along the seem of the tile and slider lip to the carpet.

Right now all indications to my unhome-educated mind say it is water in the tracks draining underneath the frame into the house. Water does not "pour" over the tracks into the house.

I am close to filling the drain holes with silicon and possible drilling small holes in the outside track to drain water......can anyone recommend something else????

I know I really need a new door probably, but cant afford it now...

Any help appreciated!

:help:
 
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#2 ·
You can replace the door with one that is thermally efficient and installed correctly or you can pull this door and install it correctly. Anything else is a waste of time.
Ron
 
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#6 ·
I can't tell you how to fix the door, but I can tell you how to check/solve your problem.

This is a case where you must do a "garden hose flood test". Take a garden hose with the water flow on low, like the amount of water flow that would fill up a glass of water in ten seconds or more. You must have a helper and you must do the test during dry weather.

With a helper observing on the inside, carefully direct the flow of water onto suspicious water entry points on the outside. This would include the sides of the door, the top of the door, and any seams, openings, screw heads, windows, cracks or other features located anywhere higher than the bottom track of the sliding door. Hold the water on each spot for a period of two minutes, or until the observer reports water leaking on the inside in the location that is causing the problem. You must systematically check each suspect area.

The water might be entering the building somewhere other than where the water is appearing. Once the water enters the wall, it has an unobstructed path to the inside of the sliding door track. The reason it is appearing in the vicinity of the sliding door is that this happens to be the path of least resistance.

Fortunately, it is much easier to prevent the water from entering the wall in the first place than it is to prevent the water from leaking into the sliding door track after it has already entered. You must simply do your homework and locate the entry point, seal it with a compatible caulking and the problem should be solved.

Although the process is tedious and time consuming, it is far better than, for example, removing and replacing a sliding door at a cost of thousands of dollars, only to discover that the problem was really caused by a small gap in the window sill above (this has actually happened).


I know this is not answering your question directly, but I hope it puts you on the path to finding the cause of the leak and correcting it successfully.


 
#9 · (Edited)
Yep ... I think that is the problem, I have holes in the tracks, but no where for water to drain out.

Do think they were just covered up in the remodel and I can somehow uncover them???[/quote]

Yes and yes.

The weep holes are more that likely lined up with the holes on top. If not, somewhere in the first few inches of the corner of the door. There should be one at each corner.

What I would do is remove the stucco the entire length of the door 1/8” below the door frame. Then install flashing to slide under the door and over and down the stucco an inch. Then caulk the flashing to the door. Just don’t caulk over the weep holes.

You would probably need to pull that first deck to do a nice job.
 
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