Interior Doors near you

British houses rarely offer a square opening, and old ones almost never do. Settlement, replastering, new floor build-ups and a century of alterations mean that the width at the head and the width at the floor can differ noticeably in the same doorway, and that the lining itself may be out of plumb. The practical consequence is that a door bought to a nominal size frequently needs easing, and that the amount of easing available depends on the core: a solid or engineered door tolerates it, a hollow core door has very little material at the edge before the lattice is exposed.

It helps to know the reference point the regulations use. Approved Document M measures a door by its clear opening width, taken between the inside face of the open door and the inside edge of the frame or stop, and notes that handles, other door furniture and weatherboards may be ignored when measuring it. It then records that a standard 826mm door leaf up to 44mm thick will be deemed to satisfy a requirement for a clear opening width of 775mm — which is the reason that leaf size is stocked everywhere in Britain, and a useful check when someone tells you a narrower door will do.

Most of the time it is not. GOV.UK's list of exempt projects that do not need building regulations approval begins with most repairs, replacements and maintenance work, and an ordinary internal door swap in an existing house belongs there. The site still adds the general caution that you must meet safety and energy efficiency standards even if you do not need formal approval, and suggests checking with a building control body if you cannot decide.

Glazing is the first exception, and it applies indoors as much as out. Approved Document K's critical locations are shown for internal and external walls and partitions alike, and the Planning Portal describes the general position as safety glazing on any panel — giving internal and external walls and partitions as its example — up to 800mm from floor level, within any glazed door up to 1500mm from floor level, and on any side panel within 300mm of the door edge up to 1500mm. Approved Document K explains that impacts with glazing in doors and door side panels and at low level in walls and partitions cause cutting and piercing injuries, and that in walls away from doors the risk relates predominantly to low-level glazing where children are especially vulnerable.

Fire is the second. Approved Document B Volume 1 covers fire safety in dwellings, and it deals specifically with means of escape from the entrance doors of flats to a final exit; its guidance on door fastenings for escape routes carries an explicit note that those paragraphs do not apply to flat entrance doors, which are handled as their own case. It also points to Approved Document K for guidance on the safety of glazing. If a door in your home is a fire door — most obviously a flat entrance door, but also doors in certain houses where a loft conversion or additional storey has changed the escape strategy — treat it as part of a tested assembly rather than as a leaf you can swap, and take advice from building control or the managing agent before ordering.

Approved Document M sets the accessibility standard for new dwellings, and although it does not govern replacing a door in an existing house, it is the clearest available statement of what works. For the principal private entrance to a dwelling it expects a minimum clear opening width of 775mm and an accessible threshold, with any unavoidable step limited to a 150mm rise aligned with the outside face of the door threshold. For the principal communal entrance door of a building containing the dwelling it expects the same 775mm clear opening width, an accessible threshold, and a ground or entrance flooring surface that does not impede wheelchairs.

Inside the dwelling it ties door width to corridor width, because the two only work together. Every door to a habitable room and to the room containing the WC on the entrance storey should have a minimum clear opening width set out in its Table 1.1, which pairs a 750mm doorway with a 900mm corridor approached head on or a 1200mm corridor where the approach is not head-on, a 775mm doorway with a 1050mm corridor on a non head-on approach, and an 800mm doorway with a 900mm corridor where the approach is not head on. The document also asks that a localised obstruction such as a radiator does not sit opposite or close to a doorway, is no longer than 2m, and does not reduce the corridor below 750mm at any point.

Original doors in a British period house are usually worth keeping. The joinery is better than most of what replaces it, the proportions suit the room, and a door that binds or drags is far more often a hinge, lining or floor problem than a door problem. Stripping decades of paint, repairing a split panel and rehanging on sound hinges routinely produces a better door than anything the same money buys new — and in a listed building, where consent is needed for works affecting the character of the building, repair may be the only route available.

Replacement earns its place when the leaf itself has failed rather than its ironmongery. A hollow core door with a crushed edge that will no longer hold a hinge screw, a leaf that has been trimmed so often the gaps can no longer be closed, a door that has bowed enough to touch the stop at only one point, or a door whose fire rating is unknown in a position that needs one — these are cases where a new doorset is the honest answer.