Last Updated on 7 February 2014 by ianr
Small Composite Door
It’s a familiar scenario; you have spent days, weeks or in some cases months researching the composite door of your dreams. Of course the search has led you to Global Door, and you’ve finally decided which colour and glass design to go for. Now its time to get down to business – measuring your current door and placing the order online…
Assuming you have measured the brick to brick opening size (we have instructional videos for this on the website), the next step is to deduct 10mm from the overall width and height to get your manufacturing size.
This is the size you want to order the door at, as it ensures the fitting is not too tight, and should make life easier when you come to install the door. We recommend using window packers around the frame when installing – and yes, we also have a video showing you how to do this!
So what is the smallest door we can make? Well, this depends on a few different factors. Lets look at the width first…
[easy-media cat=”47″ size=”250,250″ align=”left” style=”light”]The minimum width for the majority of classic door designs (that’s any design that has two molded panels in the bottom) is 836mm. Cottage doors (that’s any door style with vertical shiplap grooves rather than molds) can go down to 812mm. There are also a limited number of classic door styles available at this width.
Doors smaller than 812mm are rare, but we can offer selected cottage designs in widths as small as 660mm. This only applies to the 4 square, 3 square and Twin Side designs, and any smaller than 812mm they are only available in white. (No, we aren’t sure why either).
Minimum heights are dependant on two things; the type of threshold you have selected and whether or not you require an external sill. The full details can be found on our Min & Max Sizes document, but in theory the smallest door we can possibly make is 1980mm. This would be achieved by selecting a low PVC threshold with no external sill. Check our cill options guide on page 4 for a visual of these x-section details.
So what do you do if the width you require is smaller than our minimum? Don’t worry, we do have a couple of options for you…
[easy-media cat=”49″ size=”250,250″ align=”right” style=”light”]One thing to remember is that the outer frame of the door has small plastic valleys, commonly referred to as the ‘ribs’. These serve no functional purpose as such, and are purely there in case the frame is slightly too big for the opening.
If you need to, you can plane these off and gain an extra 8mm per side. So for example, if you have an opening of 820mm, you could in theory order the door at the minimum size of 836mm and plane the ribs down to achieve the size you need.
Remember, this will not affect the structure of the frame and your warranty will not be affected.
If all else fails and the size you need is much smaller than we can provide, we do have an alternative composite door range that offers more flexibility in the sizes. Please contact a member of our sales team for more information on 0800 5677 406.
