How to measure a mobile home door.

Measuring for Mobile Home Doors & Windows

It is easy to figure out what size mobile home door or window you need.

For starters, all mobile home doors and windows are sized based on their "rough opening" size. If you were to remove the entire door or window from the wall, you would be left with an opening in the wall. We need to know what size the opening in the wall is.

You should not measure the outside frame of the door or window sometimes referred to as a "tip-to-tip" measurement. Since the size of the frame varies by manufacturer, you could wind up with the wrong size door or window.

For mobile home windows, measure the opening inside the house. There may be trim around the frame of the window opening, but you can usually get an accurate enough measurement that we can figure out what size window you have. Most mobile home windows except some very old windows are fairly standard sizes.

For standard out swinging mobile home doors you measure the outside of the door, everything that moves when you open it. This will give you the actual call size of the door. Doors only come in 2" height and 2" width increments, so if you are close we will usually get you the right size. Also, although standard exterior mobile home doors come in many sizes, by far the most common sizes are 32 X 72 for most mobile homes built before 1980 and 32 X 76 for mobile homes built after 1980. Mobile homes built before 1970 had the least standardization, although a commonly used size for doors for mobile homes built before 1970 is 30 X 72. Please realize that although these are the most common sizes, the size of your door may be different. That is why we stock many different sizes of doors, not just the most common sizes. For comparison, a standard house door will measure 36 X 80 which is much larger than most mobile home doors.

For combination house type doors with an out swinging storm door and an in swinging regular door, you also measure the inside rough opening. But, combination units have a wooden frame, not a metal frame, holding the door together. The frame is about 1/2" or thicker on each side and at the top. Be sure to measure to the floor on the bottom, not to the top of the threshold. You need to do your best to include the wooden frame of the door in your measurements as a new unit will include the wooden frame and the threshold. If you don't account for the wooden frame, you will wind up getting too narrow of a door to replace your existing door. 34 x 76 is the most common size for combination house type doors although other sizes are available.

Some Additional Tips

You should be aware that most mobile home doors and windows are standard sizes, but they are standard sizes specifically for mobile homes. The standard size doors and windows for regular homes you find at home centers and lumber yards are not the same standard sizes used by mobile homes. You will find it much easier and less expensive to buy a standard size mobile home product than to buy a custom built house product or to reframe your mobile home to get a standard size house product to fit.

The sizes we give for all windows are doors are their "call sizes" and are the approximate sizes of the doors and windows. Actual sizes of the doors and windows we sell varies somewhat from the call size. If you need the actual size of a door or window, please call us.

The actual size of the mobile home door or window you buy needs to be a little bit smaller than the opening it will fit into. Otherwise the door or window might not fit without pounding it into place. For example, mobile home doors are typically 1/2" shorter and 1/2" narrower than the opening they will fit into. This is standard construction practice whether a regular house or a mobile home. Sometimes older mobile home doors were built without the 1/2" allowance which causes people to think the new door is too small.

You can replace a standard exterior mobile home door with a combination house type door. Most combination doors are available in the same sizes as the standard doors.

You can also replace a combination house type door with a standard door if you want.

If you have an in swinging door but no out swinging storm door, it is most likely that the storm door was removed at some point and you have a combination door. This is especially common if the door opens onto a covered porch. There have been some special mobile home doors used which are not a combination door but still open in, but those doors are expensive and not widely used.

If your door does not seem to conform to any mobile home door, it may have been changed and replaced by a previous owner with a standard house door. This is especially likely - but not guaranteed - if your door is 80" tall. 80" tall mobile home doors do exist, they are just unusual except on construction trailers or sheds.

Our manufacturers no longer sell just the door without the frame often called a "core door". This is because core doors are not interchangeable between different door manufacturers and over time a manufacturers' product line changes meaning a new door likely will not fit on the same frame as an old door. Even when core doors were available in years past, they quite often would not fit, and they were only about $5 less expensive than a complete door unit.