mobilehomerepair.com

Last month I place a topic asking about widening the doorways in a couple of my rooms to accomidate my motorized chair. I appreciate the quick response on that request but have thought of a few more questions in updating my house to accdomidate my mobility issues.

First I was also wondering after pricing doors if I could purchase a pre-hung door in the size i need. i know the walls of my house if not standard, so how could I adapt the door jam to work.

second I need to install safety grab bars near my tub/shower and need to know how and if I will need to reinforce the wall to secure them in the wall. My shower backs up to the wall with my laundry area. I cxould make an access panel to reinforce the framing if need be.

I appreciate any and all help I get.

Thanks
Melinda

Door size changes are the same for stick or Mobiles. It is not a real hard job just make sure you have enough head room if you are going to change exterior doors. You will need to move some electrical usually, but it is not that hard to do. Make sure that you use at least double headers when framing for support. You can do a search in the forum, it has been talked about many times.

Grab bars need to be anchored into the studs, you may need a stud finder to locate them. Greg

It is easy enough to change the height of pre-hung interior doors by cutting down the bottom of the door. You may need to fill the hollow spot in the bottom of the door where it is cut. If so, just pry the door skin off of the piece that you cut off and glue that piece into the hollow area. This bottom solid piece is usually a couple of inches thick, so you may not need to if you are cutting it down by one inch or so.

The mounting base on safety grab bars require 3 screws. All 3 screws will not fit on a single stud. Some bases I have seen have just holes where the screws go, some have had slots. If you can center 2 screws to a stud, you would probably be alright using a wall anchor on the third screw, if the grab bar is only used for assistance. If I were using this bar for full weight getting in and out of the tub, I would add block framing to the wall. This is usually the case since the grab bars often won't line up with two studs. I will usually add a piece of 2x6 on edge (flat to the wall) between studs for framing. It is important to center the screws to a 2x stud. In older homes with 1x framing, don't even try it. You will need to add the block framing.

Hope this helps
JD