French doors leaking

Joined
30 May 2023
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We bought our 1996 townhouse a few years back and occasionally have issues with the french doors on the 1st floor Juliet balcony. I suspect they're the original doors from when it was built and we do need to replace them as they're not the most airtight in winter but I was hoping to put that off until next year at least as we need 2 sets doing ideally. I say "occasionally" as sometimes I've opened them to wipe up the water up and we'll then have weeks of rain without problem until someone opens the door for whatever reason and then it might reoccur. I'm guessing some seal problem.... I've just removed the decorative board that covered the laminate gap - I wanted to check no water has been sneaking under it!

I've checked the drainage holes and they drain absolutely fine, the area infront of the drainage holes (blue line) doesn't seem to hold water which is a good sign that it is draining properly there. The problem seems to be the area in red ends up filling with water and since that doesn't directly lead to the drainage holes it ends up just slowly leaking into the house. From my understanding water shouldn't be able to get to this part of the door as it should drip into the blue section and then exit through the drainage holes. I can't figure out how it's getting to the red section but apart from replacing the seals with some thicker ones (and in turn more compressed so it goes into the drainage side vs house side) is there much I can do? Cut a hole into the blue section to bridge the area to drainage holes?
 

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Could it be coming into and down the sides. Or filling the blue grove and spilling into red.
 
I don't think it's filling the blue and overflowing as there's pretty good flow out of the drain holes if I pour a jug of water down there - much more than the amount of rain that would get past the seal. Perhaps it's leaking through the seal between the glass and the frame and dripping down to that section.... We've had a couple of decent quotes now so given their age I think we'll probably just end up getting them swapped out. At least be warmer this winter too!
 

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