3 years ago I had 2 Larson "Tradewinds" storm doors installed by a private contractor who has since moved. I chose these due to the sturdy construction and retractable screens and have been happy with them for the most part.

The problem I'm having is the poor seal around the doors. When the french doors are in the closed position, you can still see a sliver to light at various places around the door. This may have been due to an installation problem (didn't notice it at the time) or possibly due to some settling (house is 35 years old), but no matter when or what, I need to fix the problem.

Firstly, the sweep at the bottom of the doors was apparently cut too short and a finger-tip sized whole is apparent on one side. Believe it or not, this rubber sweep cannot be replaced without pulling the brass expander off first and this requires taking the door off! (what a design flaw this was !). Larson says that in doing so the expander will probably be damaged, so they are sending me two free ones. Bittersweet.

Secondly, when the doors are tightly closed, you can still see a vertical strip of light where the two doors come together. Usually, a t-astrigal takes care of this, but on mine, it doesn't.

My question is this: The t-astrigal was installed on the stile side of the stationary door as it should be. Over the screws that hold it in place are some small, white caps. If I remove the caps, could I just back-out the screws a 'hair' thus allowing the astrigal to move that 'needed tiny bit' toward the 2nd door? If that worked, would I then need to completely remove the astrigal and place something (kind of like a shim to take up the space) behind it before re-attaching it to the stationary door?

Thirdly, I want to run some 3/8" adhesive-backed Frost King vinyl foam weatherseal along some other parts of the doors. These doors gets full sun and painfully hot (have to drop the windows each morning so the trapped hot air can escape through the screens and not 'cook' the front doors !) and I was wondering if the heat build up would cause the adhesive to become a gooey mess or if it sounds like a good plan. If not, what would I use for these areas that I can't 'adjust' in other ways?

Hope this isn't too confusing. Lowe's hasn't been much help except to tell me that even though I bought the doors from them, having a private installer basically divorced me from any help in this matter. Soooo, as usual, I rely on my friends at Gardenweb !

Gardening Annie Louisville, Ky