help to choose composite door

alebleicker

alebleicker

alebleicker

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Joined
7 Aug 2009
Posts
21
Hi guys,

I'm looking at composite doors and I had in mind £500 would do the job, but it seems there are tons of brands which have no proven reputation and lots of horror histories after a couple of weeks researching on google. I'm looking for a long term quality door, but I was hoping to not spend much, but perhaps what I want is not possible. The 2 brands that come up a lot is Solidor and Rockdoor, but comes with a higher price tag. if I can't find any alternative to them that can offer quality and peace of mind, so be it, I'll have to spend more. If there are well know manufactures/installer that you guys could recommend, then I would be very happy :)

I've gathered some information and it seems there are a few things to take into equation:
  1. South facing door, sunlight and door/frame expanding
  2. Darker colours tend to fade after a while, especially red
  3. Solidor has timber core, while Rockdoor has foam core. I don;t expect someone to come and pierce my door, but Solidor would have an upper hand in my opinion. Rockdoor carbon fibre seems to only add rigidity to the frame
  4. Low profile aluminium thresholds are prone to draught and water leak in some situations, perhaps use a regular door frame all around
  5. Does the letterbox affect much the insulation?
  6. I would like to have a Yale Conexis L1 smart lock in place. It seems any regular multilock system can do it as long the middle of door handle and the cylinder are 92mm apart

I've found http://www.rightdoor.co.uk/ to sell Rockdoor installed in London for £1117 VAT inc http://www.rightdoor.co.uk/rock-door-ultimate/vermont/plain-glazed which so far is the cheapest I've come across online and I've seems a few success histories with them on the forums. http://www.phglazingsolutions.co.uk/ doesn't give prices but seem to have good reputation on checkatrade.com which I like, this shows transparency of the business.

I could not get quotes yet from Solidor as their installer finder system is not working on their website. What prices should I expect from a basic door like the Vermont on the link above?

There are a few other brands/shops that I've come across but I'm not sure what to say, these are my findings:
  1. http://www.hormann.co.uk/ high quality, perhaps better than Rockdoor and Solidor but very expensive
  2. https://www.compositedoorshop.co.uk/ saw some people recommending them, but I've no idea what door brand they use, I'm afraid of low quality chinese imports
  3. https://www.valuedoors.co.uk/composite-doors Rockdoors are about £1350+ and some reports that they are not good, they seems to be just a broker in the end
  4. https://www.abbeywindows.co.uk/upvc-doors/ultimate-composite-doors/ not sure if the ultimate door they sell is actually Rockdoor
  5. http://www.heritagetradeframes.co.uk/ just another composite seller or manufacturer, not sure if they are any good
  6. https://www.trade-upvc.co.uk are based in South London, that is the only reason I mentioned as I'm planning to visit their shop
  7. http://endurancedoors.co.uk/ have very good website and marketing material, no idea if the doors are also any good? The brochure has a lot of information http://endurancedoors.co.uk/resourc...a89d998c/endurance_doors_brochure_low_res.pdf
  8. http://www.compositedoorprices.co.uk/solidor-composite-doors/ seems to use other websites to give prices, not sure if they are just another broker?
  9. http://www.rocksolidoors.co.uk/component/virtuemart/solidor.html the only website so far with Solidor prices

Apologies for the long post, perhaps I'm thinking too much about what would work for me, but considering the costs I think it is worth one I decide to go ahead to get the best I can for my hard earned money.

Could you guys please share your thoughts? I would really appreciated it!
 
robj20 said:
We have a Door-Stop door, find it great for the money. We went for it after speaking to a friend that works for the council said its the one they have been fitting throughout there housing due to value and performance.

https://www.door-stop.co.uk/
Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for letting me know. doorstop seems to have as many bad cases as good ones. Like you said this council fitting them I heard about another council doing the opposite and removing them due to the amount of complaints. They were on my list of 50/50 chances as I can find as much as good and bad reviews all over the place. It is difficult to decide to be honest.
 
robj20 said:
We have a Door-Stop door, find it great for the money. We went for it after speaking to a friend that works for the council said its the one they have been fitting throughout there housing due to value and performance.

https://www.door-stop.co.uk/
Click to expand...

how much did you pay for yours by the way?

Kingdom34 said:
Just had our Composite door installed. Its a Slate Grey Jacobean Rockdoor and it was installed by rocksoliddoors based in St Albans. Paul came round, surveyed the current door, measured etc etc. We chose the design etc, he wrote up the report that evening, sent over the price, installed 4 weeks later.
Its the Ultimate range which he said now the prices between this 10yr guaranteed and much better thermal door against the Select Range is only about £40. No brainer.
Good luck with your search but I did the same and down south the prices are a little higher as I had seen them a tad cheaper but the closest was a place in Derby and they didn't stretch down to Herts.
Click to expand...

I looked at their website, they have pricing for some models, and others they don't. How much did you pay for it? I'm pretty much sold on the rockdoor so far :)

#Chri5# said:
We've just started to look for a new front door + two side access doors to the garage. Picked up a Jeld-Wen catalogue from Buildbase and :eek: at the RRP of the top-end composite doors they offer.
Click to expand...

what kind of pricing? I tried to look up the doors but they didn't have composite to compare to solidor/rockdoor so far I could see
 
kindai said:
We looked at various options, but went for http://endurancedoors.co.uk/

Well priced, very well built (a few neighbors have also had theirs changed recently and all went for the same as us after having an inspect) and loads of options/extras to customize.
Click to expand...

How much did you pay for your door? What was the style?

They seems to offer something similar to Solidor with solid timber core.
 
Firestar_3x said:
Just about to order our 5th Rockdoor, not cheap but the best (imho) composite doors on the market.

Without knowing someone in the trade your £500 estimate will buy you junk, £800 - 1k is the starting price (fitted) for something worthwhile, costs quickly escalate once you climb the model range and need side panels etc.
Click to expand...

I've got a few quotes for rockdoor at around £1250 and Solidor at around £1225, I'm trying to see if I can get a bit lower than that. I've realised already I would need to spend £1k+ to get a proper door in place

WHat is your opinion about Solidor comparing to the rockdoors you have?
 
Firestar_3x said:
One of the main things which turned me away from other manufactures was the prospect of a timber core, i had / have no interest in taking the risk on having a core which would be susceptible to contraction and expansion.

Just to give you some sort of basis the three most recent doors (all fitted prices):

We paid £950 for a Rockdoor elite, chartwell green on white with a spy hole / knocker / letter box and house number.

£1200 for an ultimate rosewood on white with upgraded glass.

£1950 for an ultimate with side frame rosewood on white with just about every option bar mesh internals thrown at it.

None our doors have had drafts around the hinges, or any drafts for that matter so unsure about that, perhaps that was on the select series? For our rentals we have gone with Elite and for our home Ultimate for the front and back, i would avoid the select model range.
Click to expand...

Cool, £1200 for the ultimate model sound more in line with what I've been receiving from a few stores. On another note, I read some things about foam expanding reports as well. I'm not sure those reviews on google can be trusted completely, but they seem legit. Both Solidor and Rockdoor with same level of good and back review about them on google for example.

Thanks for clarifying about the hinges as well.
 
kindai said:
With everything, which included re-trimming a large part of the canopy + all the extras it came to 1550ish

If we knocked off all the extras, would have been about £1200. Went for the Etna style.
Click to expand...

That pricing is very much in line with rockdoor and solidor then, good to heat that yours worked well with them. I asked them for a quote for what I want exactly, let's see how it goes.
 
Just an update, got a really good quote for a Solidor for £755 + VAT, I have already an installer that installed a few for people here in the area so that is a very good candidate.

That will give enough spare cash to put an Yale Conexis L1 on this door without affecting my budget :)

I'm trying to see what other deals I can get with Rockdoor and Endurance meanwhile
 
I ended up going for solidoor, quite happy with the result

got it from http://sgmwindows.co.uk/ for about £750 vat exc and paid a chap £400 to install, the result was very nice!

Got a Conexis L1 lock also installed, so now I use RFIS tags on my phone to unlock it, no more physical metal keys, later on I'll put a zwave module and integrate into a samsung smarthings hub
 
funny enough, my solidor started to warp under this weather. It is getting a lot of sun in the morning all the way to around 12.

Trying to talk to the guy that installed it as I believe it will need to be replaced, it is a big warp and has made the door difficult to close. At evening it slowly comes back to shape but not fully.
 
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