Cold Weather Door Knocker

An interesting door knocker problem was called to our attention last winter. One of our customers who lives in a really cold climate wondered what to do about the frost appearing on the door knocker mounting hardware inside of the door. It seems it got so cold that the  door knocker outside conducted enough cold through the mounting hardware that the inside hardware would actually collect frost.

I can see how this can happen. The brass door knocker on the outside would get as cold as the outside air. The through the door mounting hardware is a direct connection from the cold outside to the warm inside. If door knocker gets cold enough it would transfer the cold through the door via the hardware. The exposed inside hardware would then collect moisture from the air and create a layer of frost.

We think we have bad winters here in northern Ohio but I am glad to say we have not had it cold enough to experience this. We are talking climates well north of us.

Any way when asked what to do about this I resisted my first impression to say move south. I thought about using nylon mounting hardware which would not conduct cold as well but I doubt that this would be strong enough.

I have not found a perfect answer for this problem but it seems that the best thing to do to minimize this to fill the holes through the door around the mounting hardware with caulk or putty. You would like to make the hardware in direct contact with the mass of the door which would help to dissipate the cold through the door before it got to the hardware  inside. I also believe that using rosettes would help as the added metal inside would take more cold to overcome the inside temperature.

Thank goodness those of us with who do not see -10F or lower for an extended period of time should not have to worry about this.