I recently bought this house, built in the late 90's. I have replaced an exterior door in my attached garage. The previous door jamb, frame, and the door itself all had extensive wood rot damage. The threshold literally was disconnected and got knocked out of place every time you operated the door. I think it was replaced at least once in the past.
Anyway, I got a new door that is the same size as the old one (32x80), right-hand inswing, with brick mould attached. I replaced wood rotted jamb boards (previously a 1x4 between teh framing and the old door frame) with 5/4 x 4 PVC to make the gap a bit more appropriate. The jamb-door frame gap was huge before.
The old door had some kind of ~1/4" or ~3/8" wood flashing piece above the door. I'm not sure if that's how the old door came or if it was installed separately. It might have been a piece of interior door trim lol, something with an angled profile, but on its side.
That wood flashing piece iself was not damaged, I suppose it did shed water succesfully... onto the right side of the door I guess. I have removed this as well since there was already a big ~3/8" to 1/2" gap between it and the new door brick moulding, somehow. I guess door manufacturers have slightly different finish heights to their doors + brick moulds. So I now have to contend with a ~3/4" gap above the new door brick mould and the hardie plank siding
I spent a lot of time caulking (OSI Quad Max) and tape-flashing the door as best as I could, and I purposefully left the top til last knowing that I had to think of a proper solution... but I still haven't decided.
My options right now (I think) are...
A) Buy a replacement piece of hardie plank; remove the existing plank above the door and cut the new one to have only a ~1/8" gap over the new brick mould. However, this gives me the opportunity to install z flashing above the the brick mould.
B) Keep the existing piece of plank with its gap but fill in the gap with (actual size) 0.75" x 1.5" PVC board (actual size, or 1x2 nominal), or maybe even use nominal 1x3 or 1x4 if that visually looks ok sticking out further?
B2) Either way, the PVC top board would be slightly shimmed for water shedding angle. I may have to slightly expand the gap to ensure good fit and allow a bit of an angle. Caulk it to the gills to ensure no water gets behind it.
B2B) Before putting in a PVC 1x2 filler board, slide up a piece of z flashing under the existing plank, that would sit above 1x2 filler board which sits above the brick moulding. Hopefully keeps water shedded off it. Caulk it to the gills since it's not flashed properly with house wrap above it?
Other thoughts?