2 Top DIY Exterior Crawl Space Door Plans – Simple Step-by-Step Instructions! (with Pictures)
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Kristin Hitchcock
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While it is often overlooked, your crawl space door is vital for your home’s health. If you don’t perform the proper maintenance and regular replacement of your crawl space door, you may end up with water damage, bugs, and rodents. Therefore, you must regularly replace your crawl space door whenever you need to.
However, replacing these doors is expensive. Therefore, you may want to DIY this job when you need to replace the door. Luckily, building your own door isn’t difficult, but it will require a bit of forethought.
We’ve listed a couple of plans below so that you can choose the best option for your crawl space:
The Top 2 DIY Exterior Crawl Space Door Plans
1. Adjustable Crawl Space Access Door by DoItYourself.com
| Material: | Some door material of your choosing, hinges, finishes (if desired) |
| Difficulty: | Low |
| Adjustability: | High |
If you need a door that will fit any crawl space, we recommend this guide from DoItYourself.com. It explains how to measure your door properly, build a door, install the hinges, and finish the surface. You can use this guide to build an extremely basic door, or a stronger door with a more aesthetically-pleasing surface. Either way, it works well for spaces of all sizes and shapes.
The directions aren’t extremely specific, as it is made to be very adjustable. However, this means that it can work very well for many different openings and crawl space needs.
2. DIY Crawl Space Barn Door by The Cofran Home
| Material: | Plywood, other types of wood, paint, metal, and various aluminum pieces |
| Difficulty: | High |
| Adjustability: | Low |
If you’re looking for something a bit different, you may want to consider this crawl space door. According to this plan from The Cofran Home, it was designed primarily for indoor use. However, you can adjust it for outdoor use, as well. You will have to make some adjustments with the material, though, as the wood specified isn’t suitable for outdoor use.
Because of these adjustments, we recommend this plan for advanced DIYers only. It can be hard to know what adjustments to make unless you have DIYed in the past.
Because of all the parts, the adjustability of this door is low. If your crawl space entrance is a different size, you’ll have to do a lot of math to adjust this door. Some doors may be too heavy for this design to work, at all.
For this reason, this door likely isn’t the best option for all homes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What Kind of Wood Should I Use for a Crawl Space Door?
You can’t just use any wood for an external crawl space door. Because this door is functional, it is vital that it can withstand quite a bit of use and force. You don’t want to build a door only to have it break after a few months.
Plus, external doors are typically met with a low of wind and rain. Therefore, the wood has to be prepared to withstand these outside forces. Therefore, not just any wood can be utilized.
Pressure-treated wood is often necessary. However, not all of this wood is suitable for a crawl space door, as it does depend on the overall quality of the wood. Some wood is simply very low quality.
What Can I Use for a Crawl Space Door?
Typically, most crawl space doors are made using pressure-treated wood. There are lots of different wood out there, but most of them cannot be used outdoors for long periods. Therefore, we highly recommend carefully choosing a wood that can be utilized outside without rotting or getting eaten by bugs.
However, other crawl space doors are made of metal. Of course, metal often lasts longer, but it can be harder to work with. Plus, if the metal isn’t taken care of well, then it can rust and decay faster than many people think. Therefore, metal isn’t necessarily the better option for all crawl space doors.
Should I Insulate a Crawl Space Door?
Many doors are insulated. Therefore, it makes sense to insulate your crawl space door, as well. This will help keep your house at the correct temperature and reduce your energy costs.
However, you don’t need to insulate all crawl space doors. If your home’s crawl space isn’t insulated for one reason or another, then your crawl space door may not need to be insulated, either. Typically, this is considered an “extra” step. However, it can seriously help reduce your energy costs.
Therefore, we recommend attempting to insulate your crawl space door when possible. It may take a little bit more work, but it is absolutely worth it in the end.
What is the Standard Size for a Crawl Space Door?
Typically, to ensure that the crawl space is actually accessible by most people, the crawl space door needs to be at least 18×24 inches. However, many doors are bigger. This is the bare minimum. For this reason, you’ll need to measure your crawl space to ensure that you have the proper measurements.
Conclusion
Building a crawl space door isn’t difficult. However, the materials you use are vital. You don’t want to use materials that will decay or rot after only a year or two. For this reason, take time to choose your materials so that you don’t have to make a new door every few months.
We’ve listed two different plans above, which should help you DIY a crawl space door. Luckily, this isn’t very difficult in the least.
Featured Image Credit: Kaitlyn Wiggins, Pinterest
