Front Doors near you

The layout of a front entrance is set mostly by the width of the existing opening. Adding sidelights or switching to a double door usually means enlarging the opening and installing a longer header, which is structural work on a load-bearing wall and may need a municipal permit.

Glass gives a front door most of its character, and it is also the part you are most likely to want to change later. In most modern doors the glass is a sealed insert held by a frame that clamps both faces of the slab, so a damaged or dated insert can often be swapped without replacing the door, as long as the same size is still made.

The building code has a say too. Part 9 of the National Building Code, as reproduced in provincial codes such as British Columbia's, requires safety glass (tempered, laminated or wired) in an entrance door where the glass area exceeds 0.5 m² and comes to less than 900 mm from the bottom of the door, and in sidelights wider than 500 mm that could be mistaken for a door. Each province adopts the code with its own amendments, so ask the installer to confirm the glass meets the version that applies where you live.

A front door usually carries two pieces of hardware: a handle or handleset whose latch keeps the door closed, and a deadbolt that actually locks it. Whatever you choose, its strength depends on the bolt reaching deep into a solidly anchored frame, so a new lock on a split or soft jamb gives little real protection.

An entry system is the complete unit as it leaves the factory: the slab already hung on its hinges in a frame, with the sill and threshold, the weatherstripping, any sidelights or transom and the bore for the lock. A slab-only replacement keeps your existing frame and sill and fits a new door into them. The first involves more work at the opening; the second depends entirely on the condition of what is already there.

Winter exposes every weakness in a front entrance. The front door is opened constantly, often with snow on boots and wind blowing straight at it, and the vestibule behind it is frequently the coldest spot in the house.

Colour is the simplest way to change the look of a facade, and most new doors can be ordered with a factory-applied finish in a wide range of colours or left primed for painting on site.

Dark colours absorb more of the sun's heat. On a door that faces south or west, or sits behind a storm door, that heat can make a steel door bow or damage the finish, and some manufacturers limit their warranty for dark colours in those spots. Read the finish guidelines before choosing a deep navy or black, and check with your municipality before changing a door's colour or style in a heritage sector.