If you are currently looking for a new front door for your home what door choices do you think are available to you?
Composite doors form the majority of what you will see in double glazing showrooms but many other door options are available.
Like many customers looking to buy a new front door, you will visit your local double glazing showroom. What doors did you see? Quite likely you will have been offered two options – composite doors and timber doors. But did you know with the right research there are more than timber and composite doors available?
Of course there are companies that are specialist door suppliers but the reality is that most people will go to see doors at a local double glazing firm.
The way doors are marketed today would make you think you only have two options.
If you went to a double glazing showroom recently, what did you see? In most typical double glazing showrooms you will have seen modern or traditional designs again of composite doors. Most showrooms will only offer a limited product range. They may not have access to the whole of the market and what is actually available to you.
If you are one of those customers that have not visited a showroom but have recently had a double glazing salesman visit your home what did he show you? Obviously he didn’t bring you a door to view. All you were shown was a door brochure with the various styles and possibly a small cut down door sample to demonstrate the core of the door and just how secure it was.
If you are choosing a front door from a brochure and not visiting a showroom what about colours? You must be aware that the printing process in paper brochures, the screen resolution on iPads and modern monitors does not give you an accurate representation of the real colour.
Here the salesman will take out a small colour swatch and show you available colours. With nearly 30 years experience in the home improvement sector, we know of customers frustrated that the finished product was not the colour they expected. Therefore our advice is always try and view a full size product. Most good companies will have doors waiting to go out in their storage facility.
Even the national names like Everest, Anglian or Safestyle will largely promote their composite doors.
Composite doors are of course fit for purpose as entrance doors to dwellings. Available in both traditional and contemporary designs they are constructed from a solid or engineered timber core of varying thicknesses or a synthetic material. Whatever the core will be made of these composite doors will be surrounded by a PVCu outer frame.
Ranging in price from £900 up to £1500 or more for a typical composite door they are affordable, reliable and secure.
Timber doors you will find superior in quality, weight and feel compared to composite doors. A natural real wood door with a matching not plastic outer frame will provide many decades of service in the same way the original wood doors fitted to UK properties have.
Timber doors will typically start from approximately £2000 depending on the style and size. They are the more expensive product. But it is unreasonable to compare a timber door to a composite door as they are not the same.
You are fitting aluminium windows throughout your home, what door options are available to you?
If you have already made the decision to install aluminium windows in your home are you aware of the door options in aluminium available to you? Or do you think you can only have a composite or timber door? Even window companies that offer PVCu, aluminium and timber windows may only offer you composite or timber doors.
Do not be convinced to make a buying decision on security alone. No self respecting window company would offer you a door that didn’t meet minimum security standards. Whatever door option you are faced with, security is not the issue. Modern home improvement products including composite and timber doors are designed to meet or exceed the latest standards for security such as Secured by Design, BS7950, PAS23 or 24, LPS1175 etc.
What about aluminium entrance doors?
Aluminium Entrance doors are also available from a variety of manufacturers that can bring a different dimension to the “me too” composite doors available today.
For example, if you are having grey aluminium windows installed and ask for a composite door with a grey not white outer frame you are still not getting an exact colour match or look. A composite door with a grey outer frame will be foiled. Foiled PVCu, looks nothing like powder coated aluminium! Even if they are ordered in the same RAL 7016, RAL 7032 or other grey colour.
Therefore if you are set on a composite door but are concerned about matching the colour of adjoining windows, SAPA Crown Composite Doors could be a solution as they are available with an aluminium outer frame.
Aluminium Doors give you something composite doors can’t – no visible hinges!
An aluminium entrance door enhanced with timber accessories to provide a unique door
Schuco are one of the finest aluminium designers of doors. You will find their products in the best homes around the world and they are also available in the UK. Schuco products have excellent design and engineering at the core of what they do.
Schuco provide a range of entrance doors that bring the advantage of no visible hinges. Look on other doors and externally the hinges are clearly visible. Schuco entrance doors are available without visible hinges, giving you clean lines throughout.
Dutemann UK are a supplier of contemporary doors and provide an excellent selection of Schuco entrance doors that are arguably nothing like you’ve seen before.
AluK Systems were recently installed in a modern home awarded in the Sunday Times British Home Awards. A high security aluminium entrance door enhanced with red cedar to create something dramatically different.
Aluminium Doors can help you create one off designs easily.
There are a range of mullion and transom profiles available with aluminium doors that can create one off designs. This coupled with clever use of glass such as acid etched or sandblasted can help you create something unique to your home and nothing like the standard designs you will see in so many brochures.
With mullions and transoms ranging from 45mm up to 120mm on most typical aluminium systems, you can have squares, rectangles, bars or many other options.
Let us help you find a door you really want.
We have access to products you will not see in your typical double glazing showrooms and products that can offer you something different to the composite doors you’ve seen just about everywhere. Contact us and we can help you.
The post There is more to doors than composite doors. appeared first on Aluminium Trade Supply.