Doors, windows and trim

Sizing is the whole problem

Doors and windows in manufactured homes are not interchangeable with site-built stock, and this is the detail that turns a half-day job into a two-week delay.

Interior doors in manufactured homes are frequently narrower than standard. Exterior door dimensions differ as well. A slab bought from a home centre will not hang in the opening, and reframing a manufactured home wall to accept a standard unit costs more than sourcing the right size in the first place — and weakens a wall that was engineered for transport loads.

We measure the opening and source to it. On a portfolio programme that means we build a per-community schedule of opening sizes once, and every subsequent order goes against that schedule instead of a fresh measurement.

Exterior doors: the item a showing turns on

An exterior door is the most consequential single component in this scope. A prospective tenant touches it before they see anything else, and a hollow, damaged, or poorly-latching exterior door undoes the rest of a turn.

The specification we hold:

A door that seals properly is doing envelope work. Air and water moving past a bad exterior door shows up later as a heating complaint and, eventually, as a subfloor repair at the threshold.

Windows, and the egress check nobody does

Window work splits three ways. A failed seal in an insulated unit is a glass replacement. A sash that will not lock or a crank that has failed is hardware. A frame that has racked, or a unit that is letting water into the wall cavity, is a full replacement — and where water has been entering, the wall below and the subfloor need inspecting in the same visit.

Every bedroom window we replace is checked against egress. A replacement unit that fits the existing frame but reduces the clear opening can drop a bedroom below egress — creating a life-safety problem that did not exist before the renovation. It is a five-minute check and almost nobody performs it.

Trim

Trim is what makes a turn read as finished rather than repaired. Casing and base are matched to the home's existing profile where that profile is still available; where it is not, we use corner blocks and a clean modern profile rather than a near-match that draws the eye to every transition.