CRAWLSPACE ACCESS DOOR IN KEARNY

NOT A SIMPLE PROJECT

Cellar doors that are in the corner of a rear wall are often the most difficult installs. This project in Kearny, NJ was even further complicated by a narrow side door to the right of the cellar door. It leads to a crawlspace used for storage.  

Below is a close up of the crawlspace access door. It’s very narrow. The old door only opened to about 90 degrees, because it was hitting the cellar door. I convinced the customer to reverse the swing, so we could make the door much wider, and it could swing to 180 degrees.  

This is no real challenge for us, we are carpenters and masons. My company, Confident Home Remodelers, started in 2008. In the early years, we had not picked a specialty, and we were doing every kind of project imaginable. We did framing, sheetrock, tiles, masonry, windows, doors, and painting.  

We even did roofing and siding, using subcontractors. This proved to be a risky business plan, because I was relying on other people’s workmanship under my company name. No more of that.

By 2013, we decided it’s best to specialize in windows and doors, and we stopped taking on other projects. We have the skill set, but we just don’t want that work. And then in 2022, we stopped advertising for windows and doors. This was a big decision, and it’s been a tremendous success.

For almost three years, we only advertise and market for cellar doors. All of our competitors are window and door guys who occasionally dabble in these metal cellar doors, but it’s not their specialty. There are hundreds of them, just in New Jersey. There was no way to stick out from the crowd.

Now we are the specialists in cellar doors. We are the one contractor who can install ANY cellar door. No opening has ever defeated us.

We have become the leading experts at getting them done. Nobody else is using the commercial-grade glazing, and almost nobody else is using our hydraulic anchor cement. And we’ve installed so many that we’ve seen almost every problem, and we know what to do.

I do have one competitor (he’s in Monmouth County) who makes a big deal about being the only Bilco installer who handles all of New Jersey, and that he installs only Bilco, no other brand. I find this amusing because Bilco only makes standard sizes. That means he can’t install a custom unit, which is about 1/3 of the market. More importantly, he’s not installing Steelway, which is the superior brand across the board.

We laugh at the competitor’s marketing. He doesn’t install in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I don’t install in South Jersey. Who cares about that, seriously. Not one customer will ever think that either of us is any better than the other because of the geography of our sales territory. 

Actually, I am better than him, but it’s for many other reasons. It’s not because of what counties I do or don’t install in. 

You see this disaster in the above photo. After we removed the old wood unit, we expected to find a nice diagonal flat wall, not something irregular.

We decided it was best to frame the new opening for the crawlspace door while the cellar door was out. Of course, we used pressure-treated wood.

The framing includes several vertical boards, spaced as needed, and a diagonal board paralleling the slope foundation, but two inches higher. 

After the framing, we custom cut a ¾” thick PVC board. They are available at most lumberyards, but they are by far the cheapest at Home Depot. Same brand, same material. It’s still close to $150 for a 4-foot x 8-foot PVC board.

It was tricky sliding it in, marking it, cutting it, and sliding it back in. And then we had to secure the far corner with some special carpentry.

The right-side masonry wall was very irregular, and we put a few coats of our hydraulic anchor cement during the framing.  

After the PVC board was added, we poured a lot of cement between the masonry wall and the PVC board. There is so much cement there, no water is going to get into that old gap.

Here is the finished job. The crawlspace door has a latch and handle on the left, and the customer will add a padlock if he wants it. There are two hinges on the right. It opens 180 degrees, and the extra 10 inches in width makes it much easier to enter the crawlspace.

This job was installed in May, 2025. It’s a Bilco O-series, with African Grey as the glazing. It’s a glorious color, almost like a Martha Stewart designer color. It coats on well from a glazing perspective.

It’s one of the last Bilco’s we installed. Soon afterwards, we got special pricing from Steelway, based on our volume. They make all the same sizes as Bilco, and also the custom units. Bilco just keeps raising their prices, higher and higher, and Home Depot keeps raising the “Bid Room” criteria. Between those two factors, the cost of a Bilco doubled in a year. 

We also like Steelway for other reasons, and an upcoming article will describe this in great detail.

I can still install a Bilco, for instance if the customer buys it and then decides to hire a contractor. 

For more information, and to review all of our blog postings, see www.glazedcellardoors.com  We install cellar doors throughout Central and Northern New Jersey, and Eastern Pennsylvania. In the off-season (winter), we are willing to travel further.