Anybody have a solid oak entry door?

[Dargo]

I am wanting to put in two solid oak entry doors in the front of my house. I have butt ugly steel doors now and it's time to change. Heck, they are still the light blue primer color. Anyway, I've been out pricing solid oak (not the oak veneer) doors and I can't believe how expensive they are! I don't have room to add the side light sections, so I'm only wanting the doors. One is 36" and the other is 32". I want a nice design in solid oak with some sort of glass in them to let in some light.

Anyway, one of the first places I checked had some really nice pre-finished pre-hung oak doors with a nice design and some great looking glass choices. They were priced at just under $6000 each! I've found some cheaper, but "cheap" seems to be relative here. About the lowest price I've found on what I consider a good quality solid oak door that is pre-finished and pre-hung is still in the mid $2000 range. Is that what it is going to cost per door?

 

[rlk]

Dargo, wood doors are expensive, as you have found. If you have a storm door, and if the sun shines on the door, be aware that the sun will do a lot of damage, especially if the door is a dark color. I have seen several dark colored doors behind storm doors that have gotten so hot the glue has deteriorated and the panels move around in the opening. Also, the oak will split. I had one on my front porch that I removed to get a more updated look. Took the wood door and installed it on my shop. When it was on the house, it was protected by a large front porch. On the shop, it is exposed to the elements, and the sun is doing a number on it. The panels have split and you can see daylight through the cracks. You can find fiberglass and metal doors that look almost as good as wood doors, and hold up a lot better than wood doors. Good luck on whatever you decide. Bob

 

[Melensdad]

Mine is a single oak door with 2 oak & glass sidelights. I hate it. But that is probably because I don't like the grain pattern of oak. It was custom made and I wish I had never gotten it. The wood trim in my house is custom milled poplar stained match the cherry cabinets we have in the living room, kitchen, mud room, baths, etc. The oak door sticks out like a sore thumb because the grain pattern of the wood. Poplar, birch, and cherry all have very similar tight but wavy grain patterns. Oak is a rough course grain by comparison, some people absolutely love it, I'm not one of them.

There are door companies that will make them in any design you want. If I could remember who made mine I'd tell you. I know they were made somewhere here in Indiana.

 

[OkeeDon]

The like or dislike of oak seems to be a regional thing. When I lived in New England, oak was considered a "trash" wood. Coarse, open grained, harder on the grain line and softer in between making it difficult to sand, prone to splintering which makes it difficult to plane. Walnut, cherry, mahogany and maple were the woods of choice. Poplar was also considered a "lesser" wood; I had tables with poplar legs and frames and maple tops and leaves, for example.

Then, I moved south. Here, oak is about the only hardwood readily available. The closer-grained hardwoods are considered "nice", but like grits, oak is what is preferred. We've acquired some nice oak pieces since our relocation, but I still like the "northern" woods. I just got 4 older, nice Hitchcock maple side chairs on EBay; I'm picking them up tomorrow. Classic case of a lady not knowing what she has; I got the 4 for less than $200.

But, I digress. I have a solid wood door on my present house. It's a single door with side "lights"; they have custom stained glass inserts, Very nice look, but I won't do it on the new house. The wood door (not oak and not pine; probably poplar) has split and swells every time it rains. It sticks and jams. It requires more maintenance to keep it looking nice. I'm going to have to replace it, and I'm not looking forward to it, although I have found some solid wood (probably pine) door blanks for a reasonalbe price. Since we're going to be selling the house, that will be good enough -- it will look great to home buyers.

On the new house, the front door will be fiberglass. We have a conventional door exiting the utility kitchen and a door from our bathroom to a private deck; they will also be fiberglass. The other doors are still to be determined -- sliders or French, aluminum or vinyl or whatever.

There will be no wood or wood core doors or windows in the house; nothing but fiberglass, solid vinyl or aluminum, thanks to the joys of living in a sub-tropical environment.

The fiberglass doors I have seen installed take a stain very nicely; for the amount of time a guest will stand in front of the door, I don't think they'll notice the difference. If they do, I'm hopeful they'll appreciate that we put the money to better use.

 

[Dargo]

Thanks Don. My second choice would likely be fiberglass. The only issue I have with fiberglass relates back to what I saw several years ago with a $300 or so door; it showed white spots everywhere it was nicked. I could use my thumbnail and scratch the color and grain off of it. I see that most nice looking fiberglass doors now seem to be in the $1500 to $1800 price range. Have you ever had any experience with those?

One of my concerns with solid oak doors is the potential to swell and shrink with the humidity. In my pool house every door inside is solid oak and was custom made by a local company that does specialty trim, cabinets, and doors. A 3' door weighs almost 90 pounds. I shut the A/C off last summer while gone on vacation and found two of the doors jambed shut when I returned. I called the company and they showed me where the ambient temp was 91 degrees with a humidity of 67%. Once the A/C was on for about 24 hours with the temp back to 75 and humidity to 42%, all worked fine. Since we have cold dry winters and hot, humid summers, I've wondered how much a solid oak door would change in size.

Oh yeah, I forgot about poplar. I've seen several local barns torn down that are over a hundred years old that were made of poplar. Some of the wood that had not been exposed to the elements actually still looked green. It is a closer grain wood and is still relatively hard. All of the inside doors in my main house are solid poplar, but stained to match the oak floors.

 

[Melensdad]

The wood door (not oak and not pine; probably poplar) has split and swells every time it rains. It sticks and jams. It requires more maintenance to keep it looking nice. I'm going to have to replace it, and I'm not looking forward to it, although I have found some solid wood (probably pine) door blanks for a reasonalbe price. Since we're going to be selling the house, that will be good enough -- it will look great to home buyers.

Don, could that be a "Fir" door. It seems like a lot of the solid wood exterior doors up here made of Douglass (?) Fir. It seems like they were common on many of the upscale homes that did not go with fully custom made doors. So I'm guessing it was only moderately expensive, but not outrageous. My understanding is that Fir tolerates weather better than pine or poplar but has a similar grain. At least in my area, pine is very common for '6 panel' interior doors.

 

[OkeeDon]

Don, could that be a "Fir" door.

You're probably correct. In my experience, Fir is more "clear" and knot-free than "ordinary" pine. I created a beautiful post and railing from Douglass Fir many years ago. I turned a screen porch into a family room, took out the 8' sliding door that led to the former porch, and created a 4' wide railing in the opening. Way off topic, but what was interesting about that project was my method for securing the post. Our kids were little and prone to run through the house and swing on any edge they could grab. This post was just a little higher than the railing, and could have loosened almost immediately. Our house was on a monolithic concrete slab with deeper footers at the edge. I used an air chisel to scoop out a hole in the footer over 12" deep, then set a piece of 2" galvanized water pipe in the hole and fastened it with high-strength anchor cement. Then, I used 4 pieces of 2"x8" Fir, ripped and mitered to fit precisely around the pipe, and glued the joints with boat-builder's epoxy glue. After slightly rounding the mitered corners, the joints virtually disappeared and it appeared to be a solid wood post. The house has been sold and remodelled several times, but I saw it at the last sale; my post and railing are still there and still looking good. Wish all my jobs turned out that well...

Dargo, I don't have any direct experience with the fiberglass; I'm going on observation, research and recommendations. I haven't finished the research, but I recently visited the factory where the windows I expect to use are constructed, so you can see I tend to research thoroughly.

 

[Dargo]

Aaugh! I know it's not exactly timely, but I finally got two new front entry doors. I ended up ordering some low 'high line' or high 'mid line' grade fiberglass doors that look like wood. I can use one month of the delay in order time. The rest of the time...

I have one almost completely installed (just some filling and paint work on the casing and the other 80% complete. I just need to finish putting the interior trim up, then fill the spots in the casing from installation and paint. I didn't think I was in that bad of shape, but even my fingers hurt this morning.

Just to make sure that I was getting a workout while I worked, I hand carried the old doors out to my barn and put them up in the loft, hand carried the new doors myself out of my truck and took my time with everything. The only "near disaster" was when Dargo stepped on my air gun and shot a trim brad into a wood bench. I suppose that's better than shooting one into my ankle. I took the air hose off the nailer and put it back in it's carrying case when not in use after his help on the project. Now I just need to see if it's going to warm up enough today to finish with the filling and painting. Each require temps above 40, and I'm not sure it will get that warm today.

 

[Melensdad]

Brent, I think you will be happy with the fiberglass. I've got a custom oak door and am looking at replacing it (it will be 11 years old in January). We've been looking at doors and some of the best looking are the new fiberglass doors that have woodgrain embedded in the surface. I'd prefer cherry or mohogony for their look, largely because most of the fiberglass doors have an oak grain pattern and the lovley Mrs_B and I are not fans of oak (still trying to figure out why we have an oak front door since the rest of our house is cherry and poplar (both have similar grain patterns).

The beauty of fiberglass is its durability. But the newer fiberglass doors also look good too.

 

[Dargo]

Yes, I agree that fiberglass doors have come a long way. And, unless you go with the cheapest level, they really do look like wood and even stain like wood. I found that adding fancy glass in the doors also has a relatively large impact on their price. Mrs. Dargo picked out the doors. I only paid for them and installed them.

 

[Gerard]

Mrs. Dargo picked out the doors. I only paid for them and installed them.

Isn't that the way it always goes? They pick and WE pay.

 

[Junkman]

We have a solid oak entry door and buying it was only part of the headache. Getting it mounted was the other part. It is so heavy that it requires ball bearing hinges.... caching caching$$$$$$$$. I am glad that it is inside the vestibule and we have a fiberglass door on the weather side. Takes 3 strong men just to move it. Bought it in 1982 from a door store that was closing. I can't imagine why they couldn't make it selling doors that the least expensive one was over $2,000!!!!

 

[kensfarm]

For that price I'd be hauling out the chainsaw mill to make my own door & frame.. buy hey.. my house is an old log cabin anyway.