What To Look for In Front Doors

Front doors are a vital part of the home – the entryway to and from your sanctuary and the outside world, used basically every day on the way in and out of life. However, the front door is much more than just a portal for entrance and exit. It’s a core element of your home’s overall design, influencing everything from curbside appeal and aesthetic style to household energy efficiency and security. 

This piece will offer some insights into what you should look for when picking a front door replacement, ensuring you pick a long-lasting option that suits your needs properly.

Thermal insulation

This could arguably be considered the most important thing to look out for when choosing front entrance doors. The energy crisis is hitting everyone pretty hard at the moment, so flimsy and hollow wooden doors aren’t going to cut it when trying to fight off draughts. You should look for aluminium front doors with foam infills and plenty of glazing. Properly bonded doors are also more likely to have strong U-values (thermal transmittance resistance), when compared to traditionally glued together alternatives. 

Weather protection and sealing

Along with thermal insulation, it’s good to invest in doors that offer some sort of dedicated weather protection or bottom sealing to keep out heavy winds or flooding. The best door manufacturers will be able to offer this in a retractable, barrier-free way, maximising visual smoothness and seal efficacy. 

Design coherence with your home

Front door design isn’t all about the practical, functional elements of the product you choose. You also need to consider how the door is going to fit into the aesthetic profile of your home. It’s important to seek out a manufacturer or dealer with a range of different styles and colour options – it will allow you to better curate a coherent, cohesive design scheme across your home as a whole. 

Some brands can also offer matching door designs for the fronts of homes and garages, allowing you to maximise the consistency of your home’s facade. 

Break-in resistance

There are still hundreds of thousands of home burglaries a year in the UK, despite numbers steadily decreasing over the years. Guess where the majority of burglars try to get in from? That’s right, the front door. The best door options will be designed for break-in resistance, including multipoint locking systems and reinforcement on the hinge side. 

Other resistance features can include Resistance Class (RC) fittings, designed to withstand aggressive break-in attempts using axes, hammers and drills. 

Smart opening options

If you live with someone mobility challenged, elderly or simply want to enhance the space-age appeal of your home, smart opening options might be an important thing to look out for with front doors. Some brands will offer specific opening operators and tools that can be purchased and installed alongside doors. 

For an even more modern approach, Bluetooth receivers can be installed and connected to operators. This means smart opening can be completed from a smartphone and app, without any need for a fob or operator tool. 

Finding the right manufacturer 

These are all important factors to consider when seeking out front doors. However, all of them will be streamlined by simply looking for the best possible manufacturer, and indeed a dealer that stocks their doors. By doing your due diligence into the best door producers across the world, you’ll be primed to find a supplier that offers all of these essential elements and options. 

Don’t slack when it comes to researching brands and choose a company with a reputation for creating and selling high-quality doors for years.