My first experience with having my home built with Polysteel ICF has been fairly painful.  My local factory distributor and installer should be hung from one of our many hanging trees here in central Texas but that's another story.  The surface of my pre hung exterior door jams are a little over 3/4 higher than then drywall the builder used to finish out the door openings.  Looks butt ugly and unfinished.  The guy has no idea what to do about the height difference.  So I suggested he rip out the dry wall and shim some 6 inch paintable finished stock or something to match the door jam and call it a day. 

My question is how is this normally handled and how do you handle the joint between the jam extension and the jam. I thought about wood putty but that would crack. 
Any ideas would be helpful.

The post I saw about installing the doors set back flush with the inside was interesting.  If I cant get a decent resolution maybe I will remove the all the exterior doors and start again.

Soutex,

I am sorry to hear about your experience. Typically when you hire an experienced contractor or you by from and experienced distributor they will have details on how trim out your doors and windows.

As for your case. You could have ordered your doors with jamb extensions deep enough for your openings. Another alternative is to take your doors to a door shop and have them make custom jambs. If these are not acceptible alternatives then I would need to see some pictures to give a different suggestion.

As for mounting them on the interior, this is common for inward opening doors so they can swing past 90 degrees of opening. Any of your inward open doors should be treated this way to reduce the wear and tear on the door from moving things in and out, normal foot traffic, and the like. If you try to move a wash machine or large fridge through a 3-o door that doesn't open fully you will probably be taking the doors off every thime you do so.

ICF Contractor

All three doors are egress doors, all open inward and none can get past 90. To move into this house one door will have to come off it's hinges just to get the refrigerator through the door. The house is 180 miles from where I currently live and I get up there once a week to wreak havoc with the builder. I have 3 exterior doors that are prehung and are typical doors you would order for a 2x6 wall. My walls are about 10 inches thick from exterior to interior.

Inswing doors should be set to the interior (drywall) plane, while outswing doors should be set to the plane of the exterior wall surface.

I would move the exterior doors, or they will destroy the jambs in short order...

Your trim guy should have a biscuit joiner; we custom ripp jamb extensions and attach them to the door with glue and biscuits. This takes very little extra time, no cracks to worry about....And leave a 3/16 reveal between the doorjamb and the jambextension; don't try to make the jamb extension flush with the door.

Kevin

I copied and pasted your great comments in an email to my builder. I am doing most of the interior trim work myself to save money. When I saw how the doors were hung I knew it was not right and there had to be a better way. I think at this stage the best way to go is to remove the doors and move them back.

Should I have them extend the the lap siding Hardie plank around the corner and down into the door exterior trim? How is that area normally finished off?

Do not return lap siding into the recess, it looks mickey mouse(my opinion).

You can extend the jams using wood, azek or hardipanel and achieve the finished look.

Remember to order the aluminum threshold extensions if you move the jamb to the inside.

We sometimes make our bucks with a 45 degree bevel inside allowing the jamb to still be at the exterior plane. You can sometimes cut back the interior buck and foam depending on how the bucks were installed, and whether they are wood or VBuck!

Related question:

I built with 8" core ICF and have a garage-to-house door that was not faired at 45°. The finished depth will be 14¼". That door will get a lot of traffic and would like to line the "tunnel" with something that will take more abuse than deep wooden door jambs. Looks are not paramount, but a factor. I have considered 20 gauge stainless beyond the standard door jamb. Any thoughts are welcome.

Well it has been a month and my builder is still stumped. As predicted, because the door does not open at the interior plane the dry wall is damaged, the door is damaged and the carpenters are scratchig their a##. The door shop wants $200 per door for custom extended jams. Extended threshold can not be found that will cover the gap out to the ledge.

Does anybody out there know who sells extended thresholds. The largest I can find is 6.5 inches wide. I think if I can hand feed them a source I can get the ball rolling.

Well, the builder isn't stumped, he's just waiting to see if you give up!!

For threahold extensions, review http://www.enduraproducts.com/

But, before you spend a lot of time call the door shop and find out which brand of threahold they used. Most interchange, however, that's also easy when you can reuse products versus sending them back.

Now the price for in field jamb extensions covers labor and materials, but not the extended threashold? Any on-site carpenter should be able to extend the jambs however, the complete adjusted door location includes moving the frame back, resetting and ancoring, then adding the sill extension and then the jamb extensions and then the exterior trim. It's not rocket science, it's just having someone do the steps AFTER you get the sill extensions. The best way to install them is with a rubber mallet by the way!

Look at it this way, a 6.5" extension added onto a frame sized for a 2 x 6 wall(6 9/16" jamb) should reach the exterior, assuming a typical 6" core ICF! You may need to remove the foam under the sill extension and install something to the concrete, such as Trex, one of any number of products useable. If you're using a wider Polysteel product, you can still recess the door and frame and leave the sill extension a few inches back from the exterior plane. In that situation, you need to add a drainage plane under the sill to the exterior of the wall!

Also, I'm interpreting your 6.5" extended sill as a 6.5" piece ADDED to the existing sill? Correct?

The poly steel product is the 3600 series 6" wall which is about 9.75" thickness when you consider the foam. A pre-hung door for 2x6 construction would span 5.5" leaving 3.75" gap to the exterior plane and to 2" moisture barrier ledge. However what they put in was a door for a 2x4 rough opening. The aluminum thresholds I found were 6.5" total. The door has to occupy at least 1 5/8" of that leaving 4 7/8" visible and short a total of 4 3/8" from reaching the outer plane. The price for modification is in shop only. The builder's dilemma is removing 3 doors, frames and molding and giving them to the shop for a week. Leaves the house unsecured and eats into his 15% profit margin. He did hire a trim carpenter awhile back I happen to catch "fixing" the front door with 16p nails hammered into the jams through 2x4 stock jammed into the gap between the frame and jam. Needless to say I told him to get off my property and called the builder.

I am almost at the point of doing it my self and billing him my labor cost and materials. My job is as a real estate inspector but my hobby is cabinet making. I have never done doors but understand the mechanics.

Sorry, in my world a prehung door for a 2 x 6 wall is a 6 9/16" jamb; I am not aware of a 5.5 although it could be ordered. I also just ordered and installed the Endura 2" extensions, which worked with my placement; they also make a 3", although I did not look for anything wider.

Your dilema is how were the doors detailed, and what did the builder provide? Who designed it; who missed the detail?
And as for the builder "removing" the jambs from site to have extensions done???? It's only because he doesn't have a competant trim guy to extend the jambs.
One of the last houses we did we extended all the doors AND all the windows, because the detail was for a craftsman style flat stock 5/4 trim thruout the house.

I will reinterate my point....Your builder is pulling your chain!

Thanks for the info. He will make it right. I still have the 1/3 draw before we close. I have been providing ideas and recommendations all along and have photographed and documented everything. These doors are only part of the problem.