The entrance door to your house is a focal point. Think carefully before fitting a new timber front door. The type of door you should fit will depend on style of the house be it traditional or contemporary and the look you want to achieve. Solid wooden doors such as mahogany exterior doors are attractive and quite often chosen. There is a huge range available for you to choose from. The most popular doors are framed type incorporating panels. The panels can be solid wood or glass type or a combination of both. The wooden panels can be flat or more decorative in the form of raised and fielded. The number of panels can vary from 2, 4, 6 or even more are possible. The doors can be supplied fully glazed with thermally efficient and safety glass. Various glass styles are available including clear, bevelled, frosted, coloured and leaded.
Oak front doors for instance are becoming increasing popular nowadays as alternative to other species sucha mahogany. But you should exercise care when choosing an oak front door. Solid oak doors often become unstable; they swell when moist and shrink when dry as a result of changes in the weather conditions making the door warp and twist. This can lead to the door not fitting tightly against the frame therefore becoming draughty and allowing heat to escape increasing your energy costs. With the swelling and shrinking the lifetime of the paint or stain finishes used to protect the wood from the elements is reduced. A solid timber door such as oak is also heavier and very expensive to produce. Modern door manufacturing processes are producing doors that combat these problems known as ‘engineered doors’.
Examples of oak door detailing
Engineered Doors
Engineered doors refer to new technology in timber door design and manufacture. These new techniques produce doors made to the highest of standards that are stable and therefore less prone to warping and twisting.
The process employees’ high specification adhesives and laminate construction techniques to produce high quality doors that are cost effective. This process is particularly suitable for oak doors reducing the cost and making them available to the wider masses.
The door consists of small pieces of timber of lesser quality timbers adhered together with strong adhesive to form a timber block core thus giving resistance to warping and twisting. If panelled type door the stiles and rails are manufactured in the same way. This method produces a lighter door overall compared to a solid oak front door.
The external face of the door core is then over laid with thick veneer known as the ‘plank’ of the timber species required for the door. The decorative door face and the leading edge lipping of the door consist of the same species of timber. Up to 12mm (½”) can be shaved off for fitting purposes.
Front Doors Made From Oak
Oak doors are available in either finished or unfinished. You may want the flexibility of finishing the door yourself to your own specification to match with other timber products in close proximity to the door such as skirting boards and mouldings therefore the unfinished door is for you. In order to ensure that the door has a long life it is important to apply an appropriate finish. Wooden doors can be finished with any type of wood stain or oil to enhance the natural grain and colour but you should follow any guidelines supplied by the manufacturer to protect the door from exposure to the elements. This will ensure the wood is protected giving the door a long life.
Alternatively, you may select a door that is pre-finished by the manufacturer. This is highly recommended and the advantages are:
- Finishing applied in a controlled environment
- High quality smooth finish
- Manufacturer uses materials that are well tested and tried to meet with quality standards
- When the door is installed it is complete no staining is required
- Supplied with a guarantee
Doors can be supplied for you to fit directly into an existing frame or you could take advantage of a door set that is pre-hung meaning it comes complete with its own frame with the door already fitted. Even the door furniture is also fitted for your convenience. The whole door set can be fitted in your home in one go. The advantages are the door will be perfectly fitted to the frame by modern machining techniques in a factory under controlled conditions and therefore will be weather tight.
Above are some fine examples of oak doors that are currently available on the market
Available Door Sizes
Standard door sizes generally available off the shelf:
|
Door Size (mm) |
Door Size (Inches) |
|
762 x 1981 |
30 x 78 |
|
813 x 2032 |
32 x 80 |
|
838 x 1981 |
33 x 78 |
|
864 x 2083 |
34 x 82 |
|
915 x 2134 |
36 x 84 |
Doors with dowelled joints – 40 mm (19/16”)
Doors with mortise and tenon joints – 44 mm (1¾”)
Off course non standard doors can always me manufactured on special request.
Some other related stuff:
Wooden doors will require some maintenance from time to time and if that’s not for you then consider uPVC front doors.
Oak interior doors are another great choice and they are available a huge variety usually manufactured using the engineered techniques.