help to choose composite door

DampCat · 30 Jun 2018 at 18:55

Bumping this thread just to say thanks for all the useful reading! Had a quote for a rockdoor with some basic options from We Do Doors for 1600, then found a basically identical Solidor but with Ultions installed for 1200 by timbercompositedoors.com. Pretty happy!

alebleicker · 1 Jul 2018 at 21:21

1200 installed for a solidor is not bad!

The_One · 2 Jul 2018 at 19:36

if you go for a normal door with a handle then rockdoor/solidor is about 1200

its once you add extras such as a long exterior handle that the price skyrockets!

alebleicker · 3 Jul 2018 at 22:49

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.

jimmylad · 13 Apr 2019 at 09:16

Hi, just come across this thread and made interesting reading. I am a door installer based in the midlands & have fitted over 1000 composite doors & found this discussion very interesting especially the thought process when looking for a new door. Any questions door wise or advice just ask. Not really on here much to be honest as I now have an imac so i don't buy things like graphic cards any more so might no answer you straight away but will see if I can set this up for notifications. Regards, Jim

NVP · 13 Apr 2019 at 09:40

NVP said:
Almost 1 year so not the longest of tests but I can tell it will last a lifetime if that's any help. Very expensive but the security of it is worth it.

Still going strong after a couple of summer heatwaves and cold winters no adjusting needed, handle still smooth and silky, closes just as it did when we got it

Firestar_3x · 13 Apr 2019 at 09:44

All our Rockdoors are still functioning fine, no warping or anything.

jimmylad · 13 Apr 2019 at 10:21

NVP said:
Still going strong after a couple of summer heatwaves and cold winters no adjusting needed, handle still smooth and silky, closes just as it did when we got it

That's good to know. I have fitted over 900 Rockdoors & don't get many issues at all. Those we do get are quickly sorted.

jimmylad · 13 Apr 2019 at 10:31

Firestar_3x said:
All our Rockdoors are still functioning fine, no warping or anything.

Again, good to know. Composite doors can get some bad reviews but when I have been asked to look at a door that someone else has fitted (And they wouldn't go back to sort it) it is nearly alway because the door has been fitted badly. The last one we went to look at they had measured the door too big for the aperture & the frame wasn't straight so there was little to no gap between the door slab and the frame in the handle area so it was trying to shear the brush pile off making the door hard to close now evident because the temps have risen. The first thing to solve it would have been to wind the hinges back a little but they had already done that so nothing left but to remove the door & remove some of the ribs down the side of the frame to let it go back. The fitting is just as important as the door.

rexehuk · 17 Apr 2019 at 12:14

Worth noting that I went to my supplier today to get them around for a proper quote, and sees they have dropped using RockDoors for an unknown reason. They're now selling virtuosodoors? Do these have some hidden link to Rockdoor?

Webby99 · 17 May 2019 at 19:57

alebleicker said:
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.

Is your door south facing by any chance?

We have a south facing rock door and it's been a knight mate, expanding, draughts, door jamming and locking unlocking near impossible when door expanded in the heat.

Looking at getting a new one now but it's such a minefield of composite doors which will probably have the same issues. I suspect that the quality of fitting has a large bearing on the overall operation on the door too.
After looking at many different options, I thought I may have found a good option with the solid core of Solidor
. But I've seen bad reviews for these and also yours has warped!
Back to square one

Firestar_3x · 17 May 2019 at 20:14

We have two south facing rockdoors both are fine.

Webby99 · 17 May 2019 at 20:20

Firestar_3x said:
We have two south facing rockdoors both are fine.

Ours has no shade, it's in the sun all day ( and long as it's sunny!) Door then expands and causes major issues.

apg · 27 Aug 2019 at 07:39

I too am in the market for a new front door and will be going for a composite. Anybody had any experiences with VEKA doors? A couple of suppliers near me seem to fit them.

Brocky120 · 27 Aug 2019 at 12:59

Webby99 said:
Ours has no shade, it's in the sun all day ( and long as it's sunny!) Door then expands and causes major issues.

I fit composite doors all over the midlands day in and day out (Done over 1,100 Rockdoors, I am the son of Jimmylad a few posts up!). They have a new 10mm aluminium box (10mm at the back edge) section mitred into the 4 corners that run the perimeter of the whole door sash, this came into effect as of June 2019 replacing the carbon fibre. There were several advantages of this with the only disadvantage being slightly lower energy ratings (i.e A++ to an A) but you'd never notice a difference in the real world.

Webby99 said:
Is your door south facing by any chance?

We have a south facing rock door and it's been a knight mate, expanding, draughts, door jamming and locking unlocking near impossible when door expanded in the heat.

Looking at getting a new one now but it's such a minefield of composite doors which will probably have the same issues. I suspect that the quality of fitting has a large bearing on the overall operation on the door too.
After looking at many different options, I thought I may have found a good option with the solid core of Solidor
. But I've seen bad reviews for these and also yours has warped!
Back to square one

Unfortunately, Solidor's core isn't the greatest, it's more like soft wood in my opinion. Endurance Doors (17 layers) or Solid Core Doors (16 layers) core are made from Kerto LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) which is much more substantial (weight and strength).

Psycho Sonny · 27 Aug 2019 at 16:43

Brocky120 said:
I fit composite doors all over the midlands day in and day out (Done over 1,100 Rockdoors, I am the son of Jimmylad a few posts up!). They have a new 10mm aluminium box (10mm at the back edge) section mitred into the 4 corners that run the perimeter of the whole door sash, this came into effect as of June 2019 replacing the carbon fibre. There were several advantages of this with the only disadvantage being slightly lower energy ratings (i.e A++ to an A) but you'd never notice a difference in the real world.

Unfortunately, Solidor's core isn't the greatest, it's more like soft wood in my opinion. Endurance Doors (17 layers) or Solid Core Doors (16 layers) core are made from Kerto LVL (Laminated Veneer Lumber) which is much more substantial (weight and strength).

whats the best value for money door?

like the Ryzen 3600 is the best value for money CPU to buy right now. even though it's only £180 vs £750 for intel's similar offerings which may be faster but in the real world nobody would be able to notice the difference unless they were doing something crazy.

DampCat · 28 Aug 2019 at 19:07

My solidor hasn't warped at all, it's been great. My French doors however are a pig.

Brocky120 · 16 Sep 2019 at 11:59

Psycho Sonny said:
whats the best value for money door?

like the Ryzen 3600 is the best value for money CPU to buy right now. even though it's only £180 vs £750 for intel's similar offerings which may be faster but in the real world nobody would be able to notice the difference unless they were doing something crazy.

Apologies for the late reply. I can only comment on what we are happy to fit and what we see are fit for purpose (i.e not generic cheap composite doors). I'm sure there are many more out there, but the best value/performance I've fitted would be these: Solid Core Doors by Bevelpane.

They may not quite have the finish of a Solidor or the accesories/customisation, but everywhere else they are better. I would estimate they are around 30% - 55% cheaper depending on spec and obviously depending on the company used, they use the same Ultion cylinders, same hinges, similar locking mechanism and they are much heavier due to the 16 layer Kerto core. Use Liniar profile which is arguably not as good as Kommerling, but they are steel reinforced unlike Solidor which I believe use thermal reinforcing. In my opinion I'd opt for steel reinforcing if possible as you'd hardly notice the thermal difference in the real world.

DampCat said:
My solidor hasn't warped at all, it's been great. My French doors however are a pig.

Some do, some don't. It depends on many many factors, the freezing cold can be just as bad/if not worse than the direct sunlight too.

Andy garrick · 10 Oct 2019 at 11:41

Don't buy a Solidor if you have a south facing position.
We had a Solidor installed for 3 years and in the summer it very hard to open or shut door due to warping.
In my opinion these doors should not be sold by window companies as they are fully ware of the problems.

The installers answer to the warping.....in their words.....it will go back to shape in the winter.

It would be a joke but it cost us 1800 pounds!
Solidor head office complaints department are no help as they state the. 10 year guarantee relates to the installer.

I wish we had looked at reviews prior to purchasing.
What a pity as these doors look great but no good in the summer.

Ricko · 6 Nov 2019 at 14:25

I'm in the market for a new front door, and got a quote for a rockdoor based on this and other threads.
£2200 including fitting for the door and a full-height window on one side, does that seem in the right ballpark?

They do not seem to do the different 'types' of doors anymore that have been mentioned earlier in the thread, such as Elite and Ultimate, so it's just their standard door.