How to choose the front door: experts advise

The main purpose of the front door is to prevent unauthorized access, protection of material assets. At the same time, it performs other important functions: it creates the first impression of a house or office, protects against heat loss and drafts. Therefore, the front door must be reliable, durable and beautiful.

The market presents a lot of interesting products created from a wide variety of materials. Buyers have to decide which front door to choose: wooden, metal or based on a PVC profile? Each of them has its own advantages, disadvantages and functional features.

What you need to know to choose a door?

When choosing a quality front door, you need to know the answers to the following questions:

• door installation location;
• what additional features are required;
• price range of purchase;
• what will be the interior design or the exterior of the house.

All these selection criteria are important, as they ultimately provide real estate security.

The place of installation of the front door can be a city apartment, a private house, an office, a warehouse or a commercial property. Apartment doors should provide a high level of protection against noise and drafts, have a strong canvas and a reliable locking system. The doors to the house also provide reliable protection against freezing, must be resistant to temperature extremes and the effects of solar ultraviolet radiation.

The reliability of office entrance doors largely depends on the level of security in the business center, if it is high, then you can give preference to less durable, but aesthetically beautiful or practical doors. A similar approach to the selection of products for commercial real estate. They also select the size of the front door: in a store it should be wider than in a city apartment.

How to choose the front door for additional functions? Standard products of many manufacturers are equipped with one or two locks and one “eye”. Additionally, the door can be well insulated, protected from noise and drafts. Reinforced hinges, additional locks or crossbars, armored overlays for keyholes can turn out to be not superfluous. All this can be set to order or immediately pick up the door that best meets the requirements for functionality.

Cost is an important selection criterion, in one price range on the market you can see good solid wood doors, metal doors and reinforced plastic doors, not inferior in strength to competitors. The larger the purchase budget, the more stringent requirements can be set for doors in terms of quality and functionality.

The main types of entrance doors

Depending on the materials used in the production, the following types of doors are distinguished:

• metal;
• wooden;
• plastic.

Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages: iron doors are characterized by high strength, but have considerable weight, wooden doors are aesthetically attractive, but differ in low strength. Plastic entrance doors are relatively recent in the market, they are actively installed in commercial facilities and in business centers.

The main advantage of a wooden door is aesthetic appeal, even inexpensive models fit perfectly into the interior of a city apartment or private house. Today you can choose a model from durable oak or larch, such a canvas can easily cope with shock loads. However, such doors will not be able to resist attackers armed with an instrument.

For a long time, installing a steel door could only be of poor quality. They had a simple design and attracted only by the high strength of the door leaf. Modern metal doors are better in many ways, including their advantages:

• a wide selection of finishes allows you to choose a model for any interior;
• high strength, which was achieved by improving the design of the canvas and boxes;
• rich equipment with additional elements;
• wide range of prices.

Most potential buyers of the door to the house stop at this option, actively acquire them for apartments.

Plastic entrance doors are an integral part of the entrance groups of shops, shopping and entertainment centers. If 10 years ago they were not inferior in their strength to balcony doors, today the market offers models with protected hinges and locks, armored glass and stiffeners. Hacking such an obstacle is as difficult as a metal door.

Choose a metal door

The undisputed leader in the market of entrance doors is metal products. It meets the most stringent requirements and has a wide variety of models. How to choose a metal entrance door for a house or city apartment? It is necessary to evaluate the technical characteristics of the model and its design features. Which of them are the most important? This is the thickness of the sheet steel used to produce the blade, the type of steel, the number and design of stiffeners, the type of finishing material.

Manufacturers offer steel doors made of sheet metal with a thickness of 0.8 to 4 mm. How to choose the front door for this parameter? You need to look into the technical documentation and find out exactly what exactly was used in the manufacture of your door. If we are talking about metal with a thickness of 0.8-1.0 mm, then this model is intended for installation in utility rooms. For example, it can be installed in the extension of the house, which stores inexpensive gardening equipment or a useful trifle, which is a pity to throw away.

Which doors are better for protecting real estate? We recommend choosing models with a steel sheet of the following thickness:

• 1.0-1.8 mm is the best choice for an office building located in a business center with centralized security and security systems;
• 2.0-2.5 mm is the best option for a city apartment both in price and in reliability;
• 3.5-4.0 mm - entrance doors for cottages, including for country houses with non-permanent residence.

The thicker the steel of the door leaf, the greater the total mass of the door. For a city apartment, the best option is 70-90 kg, if the door weighs more, operation can cause problems.

Another important parameter of a metal entrance door is the number of stiffeners. They are located between the outer steel sheet and the inner cladding panel. How to choose the front door to the apartment on this characteristic?

The absence of stiffeners will allow squeezing the canvas, so most manufacturers complete at least one horizontal and one vertical stiffener with their doors. It is better to choose a model with two vertical and one horizontal stiffener. It will provide high reliability, but at the same time remain quite light.

In addition to information about the number of stiffeners, it is important to get an idea of ​​their design.If they are created from a corner or an ordinary profiled pipe, then this will only slightly increase the strength of the structure. It is better to give preference to a model with stiffeners from a profile of complex shape. Such doors are light weight and maximum strength.

Door hinges are an important detail; they are responsible not only for easily opening and closing the door leaf, but also for safety. If the door can be easily removed from the hinges, it does not matter how strong it is or what lock it is equipped with. Metal doors are equipped with hidden or external hinges. More often, customers choose models with conventional loops due to their more affordable cost. This is a good choice if there are anti-removable devices. They are small pins that are not visible behind closed doors.

Hidden loops will give attackers maximum trouble, it is almost impossible to remove the door from them. The only drawback of high-quality components of this type is the high price. For this reason, manufacturers of budget doors install inexpensive hidden hinges with a short life. When buying a door, it is imperative to clarify what opening intensity the installed hinges are designed for.

How to choose the entrance metal door to the apartment by the number of hinges? The standard model weighing up to 70 kg can be equipped with a pair of reliable hinges. If the mass of the door is higher, then the number of hinges should be greater. If the daily number of door openings exceeds 40-50 times, then it is also worth giving preference to models with 3-4 loops.

The insulation of the front door is a very important parameter, because everyone wants to live in a warm house and in an apartment where you can not hear what is happening on the landing. The canvas should be properly insulated, in budget models usually use expanded polystyrene or mineral wool, in more expensive ones - extruded expanded polystyrene, basalt fiber, foamed polyurethane. When buying a door, you need to clarify whether only the canvas is insulated or the box with the frame is also filled with insulating material?

In budget models, insulation is placed between stiffeners, respectively, these structures will become a kind of "bridges" of cold.

When filling the profile with polyurethane foam, heat loss will be minimized. You should also pay attention to the presence of a seal. It should be located around the perimeter of the canvas and in the area of ​​the narthex. A high-quality sealant will not only protect against drafts, but will also become an obstacle to dust.

Tips for choosing the front door can not do without information about the locks. Any of them can be opened with sufficient qualifications, but the question is how quickly the criminal can do this? The best option is to install two locks, which differs in its design. The level lock should be quite complex, have 3-5 crossbars. Cylinder locks used to close doors for a short period of time must also be of high quality and must be equipped with armored plates or turning larvae.

Metal door and design solutions

Properly selected doors will differ not only in high reliability, but also in attractive appearance. Manufacturers offer a diverse selection of models for rooms with any interior design. If you need a beautiful front door to the apartment, but you don’t know which one to choose, then information about the materials with which the decoration is performed will help you. Manufacturers offer models, the lining of which is created from the following materials:

• vinyl leather;
• laminate;
• powder coating;
• MDF;
• natural wood.

Vinyl artificial leather is an inexpensive material that has high resistance to fire, temperature extremes and high moisture. It is not exposed to the negative effects of sunlight, is easy to care for.The disadvantages include low resistance to mechanical stress.

Laminate panels have an impeccable appearance, they perfectly imitate the texture of wood. The material does not attract dust, easy to clean, durable and well resists temperature extremes. The disadvantage is the low degree of resistance to high humidity. This problem is solved by some manufacturers with a protective film.

Powder coating on metal doors is applied in special chambers, it is characterized by increased strength, is not afraid of scratches and it is difficult to leave chips on it. Spraying is not afraid of temperature extremes, high humidity and household chemicals. They are easy to care for, its cost is not great. The only drawback is the low decorative qualities, such doors fit perfectly only in the interior with a neutral design.

Panels made of cramped laminated MDF perfectly imitate doors made of wood. Their cost is high, but they differ not only in their impeccable design, but also in their excellent thermal performance. Thanks to the additional processing, such doors look as if they were made from the best types of wood. They are not afraid of increased moisture, resistant to high mechanical stress.

Panels made of expensive wood are exclusive products. They are not afraid of temperature changes, as they have a complex adhesive structure. The panel thickness of 16 mm allows threading, but makes the door heavier. This is one of the best finishing materials, but its cost is not available to every buyer.