Latest Front Doors

A front door has to look good, protect you from intruders, and keep weather out and warmth in — so it pays to make sure you pick the right one for your home, says Nick Robbins

A selection of the best new products available

Buying an entrance door for your house is a decision that needs to account for a number of factors, including: aesthetics, safety and weatherproofing. The first one of these will be down to you (or your designer) making a decision about what materials, colour and overall look best suit your new or existing house. The latter two are equally, if not more, important, yet are more quickly forgotten when it comes time to buy.

This is a mistake: self-builders and renovators who have put lots of time, thought and money into their heating design can easily undo a lot of that work by choosing a front door that creates a weak spot in their plans, allowing heat to escape and cold air to enter. This needn’t be the case, with many companies offering front doors with low U values, right the way down to Passivhaus standards.

Choosing on looks alone can be a risky strategy, says Ian Chubb, managing director of Deuren: “Around 80% of break-ins occur through external doors, so the strength of the materials used for the door panel is a key consideration.”

Elizabeth Assaf, designer at Urban Front and author of the upcoming book Door Couture, agrees that security should be the primary concern: “Any supplier you talk to needs to be able to show you that the door meets certain regulations and initiatives, like Secured by Design [see right], that the quality of the locks is high and whether there are additional features like security keys or options to have finger print entry.”

Front doors can be manufactured in a number of materials, the most common including: PVCU, GRP (glass-reinforced plastic), timber-core composite, veneered timber, hardwood and aluminium. Each of these offers varying thermal performance, security protection and requires differing levels of maintenance — hardwood doors, for example, may require paint and varnish coats to be reapplied to stop them from cracking or rotting. The biggest variation comes with the price tags: a PVCU front door may cost just £300, while a bespoke bronze option from a specialist company could be upwards of £10,000.

Current Trends

Predicting trends can be like trying to catch lightning in a bottle, but Elizabeth Assaf has noted a definite demand for oversized doors that only seems to be growing. “Big doors are really in – most of the doors we sell now are not standard – upwards of 1,200mm x 2,400mm and averaging around 1,300mm x 2,700mm. Everyone wants a door that stands out and attracts attention. No one wants what everyone else has,” she says.

The advice for anyone thinking of choosing a non-standard door, whether oversized, pivot or with a near-level threshold, is to factor that choice into their design as early as possible. “Homebuilders wanting to install a pivot front door should factor an overhang or roof into their plans, to help shield it from the elements,” says Ian Chubb. “And extra protection from the elements is needed to improve the watertightness of zero threshold configurations, so homebuilders should factor these decisions into their plans as early as possible.” H