A logo for glazed cellar doors with a ramp

DEMOLITION

  1. Demolition time ranges from 30 minutes to four or more hours, depending on the situation
  2. Some cellar doors are rusted away, rotten away, or completely non-existent
  3. The big discontinued “clamshell” units with the huge hinges can be very troublesome.
  4. Often the top header is secured strongly into the wall, and it just won’t come out. It’s impossible to predict when this will happen.
  5. Others that look “easy” to demo are strongly set in place with masonry. Some screws buried in cement.
  6. Those that have been secured with silicone come out the easiest, and typically the silicone is peeling away and water is coming in. Roofing tar is much stronger than silicone, those patched with tar are some of the worst demo’s ever. We’ve spent hours cutting and removing tar.
  7. No matter what, we’ll complete the demo. No cellar door demo has ever defeated us. We have a jackhammer, a Sawzall, a grinder, and other tools. The demo might be ugly and time consuming, but it’s coming out.

     

MASONRY REPAIRS / STRUCTURAL WORK

  1. We can remove and replace broken cinderblock, or cracked and deteriorated areas of cement
  2. Some problems that customers think are going to be an enormous cost, we quote it low, and we get it done
  3. We can add a row of new cinderblocks, to raise the unit out of reach of potential flooding
  4. Sometimes customers think their foundation needs to be raised, but actually there are other solutions more economical.
  5. Sometimes we’ll use “cap” cinderblocks that are solid 4” thick ones (4” x 8” x 16”), instead of the standard 8” x 8” x 16” cinderblock (Remember, patio stones cannot be used. If any of my competitors propose them, throw them out of your house. Worst idea ever)
  6. We utilize masonry methods that I’d rather not post online. We can begin the install of the cellar door within one hour of finishing masonry repairs, even in cool weather. Our competitors could be reading this, and doubting our claims on this. They may not know what we know about masonry and different cements. We almost never need to wait for another day.
  7. On occasion, we’ve lowered a foundation
  8. We can extend foundations or widen them
  9. Sometimes the cellar door needs to be supported on one side with structural carpentry. We can do it
  10. We always prefer to install a standard size, and not order the extension pieces sold by the manufacturer. Sometimes we extend cinderblock walls and put a little PVC cap over a unit. Every job is different.
  11. We can skim coat the entire outside or inside of the foundation with mortar. 
  12. When we skim over inside painted and peeling cinderblocks, or bricks with crumbling mortar. It’s best to scrap it down first, and apply a special masonry primer. Any primer won’t do. We know which one to use. People typically think of primer going on after the mortar, but primer is needed beforehand if the surface is loose, peeling, or sandy.

NO BASEMENT WATERPROOFING – This is not our specialty, but we have someone to refer customers to. Sometimes we come out and look, and we have to tell the customer that the cellar door isn’t severely leaking, the main problem is the foundation. We are in business to install Bilco’s, but ethics is important. We have to be honest and tell people if we think the leak is elsewhere.
Take note that there is a “standard” structural weakness between the house foundation and the cellar door foundation. Most houses with cellar doors have this problem. This structural weakness then cracks when the house settles. Every house settles. This long vertical crack is a notorious source of water intrusion into basements. Repairing it is typically bypassed by basement waterproofing companies because installing a trench drain at that spot involves removing the lower door under the Bilco. We’ve seen multiple occasions in which customers spend over $10,000 to get trench drains installed in basements, and the guy missed the actual leak source by six inches because he didn’t want to remove and reattach that old lower door, or install a new door. The customer will call the guy back, and he’ll point to the line in his contract where it says they aren’t removing that door or doing any work there. Shady business ethics at work.

NO NEW FOUNDATIONS – At this time we are not set up in terms of excavation equipment and disposal capabilities to dig a big hole in your yard, cut into the existing house foundation, and create a new cellar door foundation where there was none before. We would need a backhoe, and the ability to transport the backhoe and large amounts of materials and waste. I have space on my property to store a backhoe and a flat trailer, but I don’t own these vehicles at this time. $$$$...lol.

LEVELING

  1. Houses tend to settle 1 to 5 years after the initial construction. The house foundation and the cellar door foundation do not settle evenly.
  2. A new cellar door cannot be properly installed on a foundation that is tilted, it won’t open and close right. It might leave a gap big enough for rodents. The tilt could be front to back, or left to right.
  3. The house end is usually the lower end (it’s just not in this particular picture). Very often its ¼” to ½” off of level. We’ve seen as much as 2”
  4. For some reason, the problem is most severe on newer houses and pre-WWII houses, and least on Cape Cod houses (1940- 1965). 
  5. Houses that have had a basement access created years after the house was built are least likely to have a settling problem between the house and the Bilco foundation. Because the house already settled.
  6. We have various methods to level a new cellar door, including adding a tapered layer of cement.

NEVER SET ONTO WOOD

1. Pressure-Treated wood only lasts about 20 years. 

2. Most people have seen a deteriorated deck or rear steps built out of pressure-treated wood. You don’t want that problem under a cellar door. 

3. If you set a cellar door onto pressure-treated wood, the wood will look as bad as a deck after 20 years. It will be completely fallen apart in 30 years.

4. The intended life of a Bilco Door, the way we install them, is decades more than 20 years. 

5.  Sometimes, we need to use pressure-treated wood as part of a new foundation for a cellar door. This kind of carpentry is almost always needed for a flat unit, or where the cellar door is in a corner next to steps. In these cases, we ALWAYS add a 1/2″ or 3/4″ thick piece of Azek (or comparable brand of PVC board) to cover the wood. There are many pictures of this throughout the website

NEVER SET ONTO PATIO STONES OR BRICKS

  1. Patio Stones should NEVER be used under a Cellar Door, even just to raise it 2” higher
  2. They are extremely weak, they don’t set well with Type S Mortar, or any other cement
  3. The masonry will get a long crack between the cinderblocks and patio stones. It’s a guaranteed source of a future leak
  4. If you need to raise your Cellar door to resolve flooding, we will use 4” thick cinderblocks, or pour a thinner cement.
  5. We’ve experimented with setting onto bricks. When you install the Bilco Nail-Set Pin, it will crack the bricks


VINYL or ALUMINUM SIDING REPAIRS

  1. For various reasons, we often have to cut into the vinyl or aluminum siding, and add a J-channel around the new cellar door
  2. Sometimes it’s because the foundation settled. The prior Bilco was neatly tucked under the bottom of the siding, but now we need to slightly cut into the siding.
  3. Other times the customer wants more head room
  4. We can do this, and keep it all water-tight. We typically use white, or we use left-over J-channels that the customer has stored in the garage rafters, or under their front porch.
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