1 £3,000 door

[Maccapacca]

If anyone wants to know what the veneer on one single internal £3,000 door looks like. Here it is.



It's a technical veneer which is hundreds of wood veneers laid then cross cut the opposite way. Very different to a standard veneer.

The mdf is routed and a hardwood inlay in glued in. It's then routed again and the veneer overlaid. A french polisher then makes the two edges good and dyes the hardwood inlay the same colour as the veneer.

Truly lovely truly expensive.

There are double, triple and 6 leaf sliding doors for these apartments. Some frames contain led lighting others have electric closers. The most expensive at the moment is one number opening £8,000 for a 6 leaf slider opening to a dining room bigger in area than some flats I've built.

http://www.lanitisaristophanous.com/products/timber/veneers/technical-wood-veneers

 

[Maccapacca]

I suppose it's like leather interiors on cars. Only a small handful are 100% leather. The majority are leather veneers backed on plastic.

It's more sustainable, more stable and more consistent.

 

[Maccapacca]

A real 100% mahagony door would probably cost the same.

Most doors are labelled 'solid' when all it means is they are just not that egg crate inside. Most are chipboard or mdf veneered or cheap pine or oak.

 

[Maccapacca]

To be fair I wouldn't know the difference between a £50 and a £2,500 graphics card. I would fully expect there's a massive difference. It would be very easy and lazy just to say lol ££££ mugs without fully understanding.

 

[Maccapacca]

Is it your door maccapacca?

Definitely not. It's part of a package we have priced for apartments in London village ranging from 4 to 20m

You should see some of the stone work in the bathrooms

 

[Maccapacca]

Put a 3mm deep scratch on that door and see what you can do with it, nothing apart from bin it!

http://www.magicman.co.uk/examples/door-repairs/

 

[Maccapacca]

Surely people buying those apartments would throw up if they knew the doors were mostly MDF from B&Q! lol

They do start their life as something like Leaderflush blank door sets with FD30 fire resistance and acoustic reduction properties.

http://www.leaderflushshapland.co.u...ources/Technical-Guide/Doorset-Leaves-Facings

http://www.shadbolt.co.uk/acoustic-doors-and-doorsets.aspx

 

[Maccapacca]

They wouldn't even care about bragging. London is full of empty shells held by foreign investors as piggy banks

Have you got a source for that? I'm pretty sure London is a very densely populated city. It's in no way full of empty shells.

 

[Maccapacca]

It's more labour intensive for me to make a panelled door. I reckon I could pop ones out like in the OP in about a day if I could get hold of the timber in a big enough size. They would still cost less than 1/2 of the cost at the very worst, even due to needing more material.

If I said £2k, that's a huge saving for a totally solid door of superior construction.

If you can do for half the cost I've got 400 I need in batches of 10 weekly starting October. I assume you can provide the veneered frame, stop and architrave for that plus the hinges ironmongery and fire certificate. Can you pallet and protect and deliver them to London for that price as well. Don't forget to pay the congestion charge and have a low emission lorry.

A man hardly touches these. A cnc machine pretty much does the lot with a bit if labour to load into the machine and fix the hinges.

I'll have to remember when they are installed to take some pictures.

 

[Maccapacca]

400 x £3,000 = £1.2 million on doors.

3k was the cheapest.

Total carpentry package £2.5m Inc timber floors for 50 apartments. Not including kitchens.

 

[Maccapacca]

£2.5mil for carpentry inc timber floors and half the budget is getting spent on doors?

Is it me or does that seem grossly disproportionate ?

I would've thought you want to spend more money on the floor, seeing if anything, it's one thing that you make contact with the most, and wear off first.

Timber flooring is only halls and living rooms. The rest is stone and carpet I won't post the carpet cost because some people may faint.

 

[Maccapacca]

Also don't forget the developer is making very likely 30% so the cost to the customer is cost plus 40%. Margin based on cost vs margin based on value.

 

[Maccapacca]

Thats an expensive door...does it do anything else, other than open and close?!?

Unfortunately it does less than that. You have to open and close it yourself.

 

[Maccapacca]

The thing is though, seeing it's all CNC machined, it's no "craftsmanship" really, and the entire point of CNC machine is to increase production volume and raise consistency. The return should mean a high quality product at what would be a lower price point.

Theoretically correct however the cnc machine is £700k plus the running cost, maintenance, a roof, insurance, training, loading and a cad monkey.

 

[Maccapacca]

You'll find that mdf and other composite reconstituted timbers are what most timber products are made of.

Engineered floor
Timber flooring
Kitchens
Furniture

For some context we competitively tendered this against two other carpenters and we are looking to start October. We have a good reputation for quality and programme so although price isn't the greatest consideration we certainly are competitive or the cheapest. Two others would be more expensive.

Again for context as all contracts are signed under deed we have to warrant these and all products from defects for 12 years. We also don't want to be adjusting doors continuously which is the risk you have with solid timber doors.

Maybe mdf shouldn't have been mentioned as it's detracting from the technical veneer and inlay which was what really the post was about.

As I said before your leather interior is very far from leather it's more of a vinyl. This is the same.

 

[Maccapacca]

I think the thread was more about trying to make us peasant folk jealous but it backfired as everyone thinks its crap .

I can assure you that was not the point of the thread.

It's not my door. Trying to make people jealous? That's like saying I'm showing off posting a veyron in the motors daily encounter thread which I walked past.

I've never priced a door so expensive and thought H&G would appreciate a look.

 

[Maccapacca]

My biggest issue with MDF is that it tends to balloon quite nicely as soon as it gets slightly damp - see MDF skirting boards in the houses of careless people for an example of this. Are these doors treated in some way to avoid that?

Hardwood lipping to all 4 edged and with the veneer no mdf is exposed. If the mdf has a chance to get wet in your apartment you have bigger problems than a few doors.

I'm not particularly concerned whether things are real wood or not - veneered MDF is a great way to get consistent results. I'd hope that the £3k figure actually includes an installed door frame, track systems etc and not just a single veneered MDF panel with some hardwood inlaid into it.

That's everything fully installed, insured and warrantied for 12 years.