help to choose composite door

[Firestar_3x]

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.

 

[kindai]

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

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.

 

[panthro]

Did you post this on TZUK as well?

 

[alebleicker]

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.

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.

 

[alebleicker]

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.

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.

 

[alebleicker]

Did you post this on TZUK as well?

yep

 

[panthro]

Thought I recognised it because I was using your OP as a baseline for myself searching for doors

 

[#Chri5#]

Just remembered we're in a conservation area, so e-mailed the council to see what permission we need for a new door.

That Endurance door builder is quite good though

 

[alebleicker]

Just remembered we're in a conservation area, so e-mailed the council to see what permission we need for a new door.

That Endurance door builder is quite good though

Thanks for that, I'll definitely consider them

 

[alebleicker]

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

 

[Buffman]

Is the main advantage of composite doors etc security? I fancy a timber door if the cost is right (I'm willing to oil it etc..)

The doors I want replaced are front door (got a porch door outside) and back door.

 

[NVP]

Security and no maintenance required.

 

[Nathan]

Solidor are brilliant. Always buy top quality items if they are being heavily used. Front door is certainly one, similar to a kitchen tap!

 

[SiD the Turtle]

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?

Big fan of Solidors, we got a stable door to replace the back door that came to £1350 IIRC, current quoting on the front door which is coming in at £1450, just haggling on price now.

 

[Buffman]

did you guys have much issue with plaster getting knocked out when getting your doors refitted/put in? Ideally I'll have the doors put in before replastering but may not be able to. I've had a couple local companies round to quote and looking at ~£1400 for each modern composite door (I dont like the look of Upvc)

Anyone had any timber doors put in also? I prefer the look of timber doors tbh and not too concerned about security.

edit:

I've found the website here which seems to offer rockdoors at around £1200 fitted. seem good?
http://www.verysecuredoors.co.uk/rockdoor_dakota.html

 

[SiD the Turtle]

No plaster damage when they were taking out our old alu door and replacing it with a Solidor.

Our front door is timber. I believe they need a lot of looking after (which the previous owners did not) and the door swells when it's wet, is drafty when it's cold and the front fascias are peeling off.

 

[theone8181]

We have an odd composite door, it's 3mm steel on inside and out with wood sandwiched in the middle (house is 20 years old). They're solid but the wood sandwich does expand and catch, I want to change both front and rear doors for upvc composite but that would be a couple of grand.

 

[sunseeker]

alebleicker, the only info we have at point of research is customer reviews. these days marketing is just bs. im looking also to install a composite door and like you based my decision on reviews. i have read in the u.k there are only 4 manufacturers of composite doors which import them all from china first, you can add hardware hinges etc to your spec and then its manufactured by "them". the four are solidoor , doorstop, truedor and permador, found this on uk composite door manufacturers type into google. i looked at door stop as this is what my installer buys, but recent reviews dec2017 are horrific from a high percentage of reviews, rockdoor was the next port of call, again the marketing looks amazing but recent reviews on there carbon fibre top of the range doors seems to have bowing issuses out the wazoo, again dec2017 reviews, so recent hinges and locks been draughty, one particular lady had 4th door fitted by rockdoor installer and still leaks air from the hinges and bottom sill, so im at a loss like you. generally you pay for what you get, however in these cases these are expensive doors which seem to be having problems. another problem seems to be the paint on the surface of the door is so thin scratches are revealing the white base colour underneath, so its important to choose a company with the colour that all the way through the skin of the door, does anyone know who does this?
have you found anything recently which your happy with ?

 

[sunseeker]

The door stop door i picked was from the contemporary range the wellow, with the long handle to one side and 4 small square windows, my installer quoted me £895 fitted.

 

[alebleicker]

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