The front door is the face of the building. It carries an aesthetic load as part of the exterior of the building and the interior of the room. Its functional purpose is no less important: the protection of the room against the entry of unwanted guests, the prevention of heat loss, and insulation. Only a made of high-quality material and properly installed entrance wooden door can meet the necessary technical and aesthetic requirements.
Types of entrance doors used for residential premises
Wooden doors are preferred by many owners of houses and apartments. It is prestigious, environmentally friendly, has several advantages in terms of operation:
- dimensions of wooden doors can be adjusted;
- does not cause problems replacement of locks and handles;
- subject to repair and restoration.
Make entrance doors of solid wood. This can be a canvas of specially treated boards or a frame with wooden panel inserts.
Helpful advice! When choosing a wooden entrance door, be sure to pay attention to whether the design of inserts made of wood fiber or wood particle material. The presence of such fragments significantly reduces the performance characteristics of the product.
The shape distinguish the door:
- rectangular;
- rectangular with arched top;
- with the upper transom (rectangular or arched fixed part, which is used for decorative purposes or to cover an unnecessary area of the doorway);
- other non-standard forms (in the form of a trapezoid, an irregular rectangle, etc.).
Entrance doors quite often consist of one leaf, i.e. represent one canvas. They can have one and a half of the sash: one full, the second – much less. This design is used only in cases when it is necessary to expand the doorway. There are double doors: their constituent elements are equally functional. The increase in the number of wings significantly affects the size of wooden doors. Most often such models are used to close a wide, non-standard size doorway.
Different doors and the way of opening:
- swinging way – the door leaf opens inwards or outwards;
- sliding method – the door leaf moves back along the wall to the left or to the right.
A sliding door unit is a complex structure that cannot provide the necessary tightness, so such a door is used infrequently as an entrance door.
Special requirements are imposed on the material for the manufacture and construction of the entrance door facing the street. Only solid wood can be used as material. It is solid and glued. The technology of splicing is made using high-quality adhesives. The fibers are stacked in a specific way that contributes to the strength of the joints. Often, gluing places are practically invisible, but such doors are best used as entrances to an apartment, where they will be protected from precipitation and temperature changes.
Wooden doors from an array that do not have spliced parts, have several advantages:
- reliable sound insulation;
- low thermal conductivity;
- moisture resistant;
- aesthetics, aided by the natural structure of wood.
The wood used for the manufacture of street doors should be dense, the canvas – thick, at least 5 cm. Ash and oak are best suited for the manufacture of such doors. Ash has an affordable price, the material is easy to process and make decorative inserts in it. Oak is stronger, but it is difficult to work with it. Oak door construction has a long operational life (25 years or more). When installing the oak door will need to increase the number of fasteners.
Experts recommend choosing a box for doors from the same wood from which the main canvas is made – and this is not a question of aesthetics. A quality door product must have reliable supports that will not crack and will firmly hold the entire structure.
Helpful advice! Installing at the entrance to the oak door, it is better to use the trim from the same material. No decorative coating applied to another type of wood can imitate an oak plank.
Beech can be used as a raw material for the manufacture of an outdoor door. The difficulty of using this material is the length of the preparation process. This wood must go through a rather long process. Only after that it will become moisture and heat resistant. Walnut and cherry are good materials. Features of the operation of street doors require the presence of two elements in the design:
- threshold;
- canopy.
The presence of the threshold is explained by the need to protect against the penetration of dirt and water into the room, and also this element serves to block the gap through which unwanted air exchange is possible. Over any street door must be a carport. Under the influence of constant direct rays of the sun and in direct contact with precipitation any material will be destroyed.
It is fashionable and prestigious to build houses out of wood, surrounding yourself with natural, eco-friendly material. Houses erected from timber, logs and sandwich panels, which appeared not so long ago, but gained wide popularity. It seems that everything is obvious: the entrance door to the wooden house should be made of wood. But the choice of suitable raw materials, door form and design as a whole is far from simple. Deciduous trees with a dense structure are recommended as a material for the manufacture of entrance doors to houses.
If the walls are made of a rounded log, it is necessary to choose a model that will be combined visually and fit functionally. Too massive door looks pretty rough in the log wall. Paneled construction with small inserts, fragments will be “alien” and will not make up a single composition with the facade of the building. You should also take into account the size of the casing, which visually significantly increases the entire door structure. Compliance with the size of the door parameters of the building as a whole is very important for houses of this type.
Installation of doors in a wooden house has its own characteristics. Today, almost no one allows himself to give a log building for 6 months for shrinkage. Yes, and the doorway is mounted during installation, and not cut out after the construction of the building. In such an opening, you should immediately insert the doorframe from a bar of 100×150 mm with a selection. It will “hold” the logs if it leads them, will not be deformed, and the door to the wooden house will be able to open and close without rubbing in.
Street wooden doors for timber houses are easier to install, but it is necessary to choose the right wood so that its design is combined with the structure of the basic material of the building. When selecting the entrance street opening for houses from sandwich panels, the main difficulty lies in determining the optimal weight of the door structure. If you give preference to oak, then the width and height of the product should not exceed 85×210 cm, and the thickness of the door leaf should not exceed 5.5 cm. Sandwich panels are securely fastened to each other. However, to install them on a heavy door casing will be problematic.
When choosing a front door for a private house, the main requirements are strength, noise insulation, moisture resistance and design. In pursuit of decorativeness, technical characteristics are sometimes relegated to the background: mandatory fabrication of an entrance door made of solid wood, quality of wood, reliability of fittings, compliance of the coating to the conditions of operation.
With the advent of glass, many began to install wooden glazed doors to the house. Glass facilitates construction. Even double doors in this design do not seem too wide and massive.
When erecting a new building, if wooden windows and doors are installed, it should be taken into account that they must be either the same color, or the windows are lighter by a tone or two (frame sizes will hide the difference). This happens if the windows and the front door are made of different wood. Applying the same coating on a different tree structure does not give the same effect.
Many seek to purchase insulated wooden doors for private homes. Finished constructions consist of two (sometimes three) wooden canvases, between which insulation is placed. Such doors have a thickness of 8-10 cm and weight from 70 to 150 kg. To hang them better to use detachable adjustable canopies.
If there is a need to warm the old wooden door, you can do it with the help of upholstery, under which you should lay the appropriate material. As a heater you can use:
- foam rubber;
- izolon;
- mineral wool.
The lack of foam rubber is that it absorbs moisture and becomes unusable after 3-5 years. Mineral wool is compressed, does not give volume. The most acceptable for insulation – izolon. Moisture resistant lightweight synthetic material is a reliable insulating layer.
Helpful advice! When buying a door unit at a reduced price, you should definitely understand that this is a stock or a devaluation. The latter option necessarily suggests the reasons – the disadvantages. You must be sure that the defects do not affect the subsequent operation.
Even an entrance door structure made of high-quality material and processed with modern means needs to be cared for, as it functions in outdoor conditions.
Beautiful and reliable entrance door gives a feeling of comfort and security. Therefore, you need to carefully and responsibly approach the choice. Evaluate the product must be comprehensive. Decorative effect as an interior component and quality indicators as the basis of normal functioning should be the main criteria when choosing a reliable design.
