How To Select A Hinged Door
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 Hinged doors come in many different constructions types, materials, styles, and designs. Hollow vs. Solid core Construction Solid core doors are made of solid wood. Many are built with recess panels. Hollow core doors may be hollow plastic, metal or wood. The cheapest door is a hollow wood door. Hollow core wood doors usually have a flat and are not very durable. Most people can put their fist though a hollow core wood door so they have no security value, do not stop sound very well and do not have a very long life. Hollow core doors have a 1 to 1-1/2 strip of wood around the perimeter of the door. If you must trim the door more than 1/4 inch to install it in a door opening, a hollow core door may fall apart. Door Materials Doors can be built of plastic composite, soft woods or hardwoods. Plastic doors usually have some wood in them. This allows for the installation of a door handle and hinges. Plastic door are only used on lower end homes. The are much more durable that hollow core wood doors. They also can be made to look like a real wood door. Until you touch it, it may be hard to tell. Most doors are made of softwoods like fir and pine. These doors provide good security, easy installation, and good soundproofing. Hardwood door are usually used as entry doors. The hardwood makes them super durable but can make installation much more difficult. Door Styles The most standard door style is the 6 or 4-panel door. These doors are built using two stiles that run vertically and two or more rails that run horizontally. The center vertical wood is called a mullion. Panel doors have several panels mounted between the rails and stiles. The door is installed into a frame that consists of jambs, casing, stops, sill, and sometimes a threshold. Interior doors do not have thresholds while all exterior doors have them. The left, right and top jambs form the sides and head of the frame. These are held in place using the casing. The casing is both a decorative trim and structural support for the door. Most doors are framed about 2 inches oversize. The air gap around the jambs allows for squaring the door at installation time. The stops (wood strips) are used stop seal around the door when it is closed. French doors use one left-hand and one right-hand door to make a dramatic entrance. The width of a double-door also makes moving in and out a breeze. Fire-Rated Hinged Doors Fire-rated hinged doors are used for entrances to a garage. Code (depends on the state regulations) requires a fire rated. These are built with either a steel layer or a high-density layer that will keep a fire from burning through the door for a rated time (ranging from 20 minutes to 3 hours. They are not designed to stop the fire, just slow it down. Door Design As a big fan of architecture, nothing says quality like the old solid door of an older house. Today doors come is thousand of designs with integral glass, round tops, and detailed carving. You can spend as much or as little as you want on the doors in your home. Custom hand-crafted doors can be as much as $30,000. Usually the big money goes into the main entry door but finer home will also have nice hinged doors through out the home. The information on this site is provided for reference only and is provided "AS IS", "AS AVAILABLE" with no guarantee of accuracy. Information comes with no warranties, express or implied. Use the information from this site at your own risk. See our disclaimer for more details. |