Hello all, I have been making a fair amount of exterior doors these past few years. I Generally have been using Thrematru adjustable thresholds, a “typical” thrematru type weather strip at the bottom of the door, and the flapper type silicone rubber weather strip for the rest of the door. While this system works, I feel there must be something out there that would be better. What are you professional door makers using to seal up your entry doors with?
I have a radius top door coming up in a location that has very cold and windy winters, so I want to make sure it’s as tight as can be. I was wondering if anyone had used silicone rubber bulb type instead of the flapper type for a better seal? Open to ideas or suggestions.
And yes I have read David’s book, and no he does not cover this!

A notable exception, the weatherstrip. My apologies!

We typically use xcompressible foam supplied by Endura around the door. This will work for curves, but a 18” radius head is the limit. It is what everyone expects. I never liked the sponginess at the latch, but people are used to it. I prefer the bronze leaf if you can stand installing it. Radius heads require clipping the stuff making it even more difficult. We would charge about $800 per door, thinking it will take all day.

The door bottoms are epoxy coated to seal them up. By far, the best seal there is, short of a door shoe. Bless their little hearts, but painters will never paint the bottoms. We made a solid wood sill, canted at five degrees, with a 1/2” clearance between door and sill.
Then a bronze interlock was mounted on the sill, and the j-hook on the door. This is the gold standarde in keeping out drafts and water. It does frost o;the inside of the door, so we rabbeted the doo4 bottom leaving a 3/8” rabbet of wood on the inside, hiding the frost.
Joe Calhoun builds a European style jamb and sill, with weatherstrip to match. It is a well thought out system, whereas the American is more of a mash-up.
I would recommend crowning a door, even jointing in an 1/8” or so. This keeps the top and bottom tight to the stops, and tensions the latch. Especially important on doors with no e

Have not made doors since I moved, but I made 8/4 white oak sills beveled to 4 degrees with a drip kerf beneath. For the threshold I got them out of NY, solid bronze interlocking so you needed to fit the door, scribe to the sill of necessary, seal the sill and install the threshold on the sill with the interlocking piece on the bottom of the door. For weatherstrip I used a guy who still did the brass interlocking weatherstrip with brass nails. He had a relief cutter made by Rockwell which is likely no longer made, which is why he also charged a fortune. Looked like pure class when done though.