Can I treat/fill this rot in the exterior face of my wood patio doors?

Question

I have a 4-panel wood patio door that's the original from 1992. There's some obvious rot in two panels on their exterior faces, as shown in the photos. The previous owner just painted over the issue, but I'd like to do something that's actually remedial if possible.

I contacted the original manufacturer (Pella), and unfortunately they don't make replacement panels for this door anymore. Replacing the entire door is obviously an [expensive] option, but we enjoy the look of this one and would like to see if we can get another 5-10 years out of it if possible.

I don't care about it looking perfect because these doors are in the back of the house -- are there products I could apply that would at least slow down the rotting?

If I went the repair route, the wood feels firm around the rotting areas but are the spots too big bondo/fill/etc.?

Answer 1

This might take some courage.

Scrape the paint and only some of the rotten wood.

I used this product and it worked well. It hardens very hard in short time so you can paint over it.

I found it at Home Depot rotten wood.

Answer 2

While a wood restorer is useful sometimes, the rot here is at a structural point — ie, where the rail meets the bottom stile. So depending on the extent of the rot, you might win or you might be out of luck.

I doubt you’ll get 10 more years (sorry!) but a decent short term fix would be to drill a roughly 12”x1/2” dowel through the stile and into the upper (solid looking) part of the rail.

Personally, in wood restorers, I prefer 2-part products, such as those by Abatron. The one part ones aren’t terrible; just not as good. Be sure to follow the written instructions. (They aren’t always intuitive.)

Be sure to seal all the raw surfaces with a couple of coats of paint. I’d be willing to bet that the bottom edge of your door doesn’t have paint on it, thus rot from splash back.