Composite Doors, Supplied and Fitted

Composite door styles we fit

A composite door is a 48mm solid timber and foam core wrapped in a glass reinforced plastic skin. That build is what lets it hold a colour, resist warping and take a proper multi point lock without flexing. The style you pick changes the slab, the glass aperture and the hardware, not the core.

• Solid slab, no glass at all, the most secure and the warmest option
• Half glazed with a single central aperture, the most popular choice on Caerphilly terraces
• Four pane and six pane cottage styles for older stone fronted properties
• Door with one or two sidelights, which suits wide Edwardian and 1930s openings
• Door with a top light or transom above, used where the opening is taller than a standard 2100mm slab
• Arched glass and stable door variants for cottages and converted properties

Colours and finishes

Composite skins are coloured through the surface layer rather than painted on, so a scratch does not show a white line underneath. Anthracite grey and black are the two we fit most, with navy close behind. Dual colour is standard on most ranges, so you can have a strong colour outside and white inside where the hallway is small and needs the light.

• Anthracite grey, jet black, navy blue, racing green, chartwell green, duck egg, red, cream and white
• Woodgrain or smooth surface texture on most colours
• Dual colour inside and out at no structural cost
• Hardware in brass, polished chrome, satin chrome, matt black or graphite
• Matching letterplate, knocker, spy hole, numerals and handle sets

Glass options

Glass is where a door stops looking like everyone else's. All our glazed doors use toughened safety glass as standard, and every glazed unit is double glazed with a low emissivity coating. Obscure glass is graded 1 to 5 for privacy, and we recommend level 4 or 5 for anything facing a pavement.

• Clear toughened double glazing for doors set back in a porch
• Obscure levels 3, 4 and 5 for street facing front doors
• Decorative leaded, bevelled, sandblasted and stained designs
• Triple glazed door glass where the hallway is cold or the door faces a main road
• Low iron glass where you want the colour of the door to read true through the frame

Security and locking

Security is the part people ask about last and care about most once it is explained. The lock, the cylinder and the hinges do the work, not the slab. We fit a high security multi point lock as standard, with a cylinder that resists snapping, bumping, picking and drilling.

• Multi point lock with hooks, rollers and a deadbolt engaging on lift of the handle
• Anti snap, anti bump, anti pick and anti drill cylinder to TS007 3 star or equivalent
• Reinforced steel or aluminium subframe within the outer frame
• Fixed security hinge bolts on the hinge side so the door cannot be levered off
• Laminated glass upgrade available where the door is out of sight of the road
• Specification suitable for PAS24 requirements where a landlord or insurer asks for it

Insulation and running cost

The foam core is the reason a composite door feels different to touch in January. A typical old timber or early uPVC front door has very little insulation and a poor seal at the threshold, so the hallway pulls cold air through the letterplate and under the door. A modern composite slab with a double sealed frame and a thermally broken threshold cuts that draught out.

It will not on its own transform a heating bill, and we will not claim it does. What it does reliably is stop the hallway being the coldest room in the house and stop the draught you feel on the stairs.

Composite compared with uPVC doors

A uPVC door is a hollow frame with a panel inside it. A composite door is a solid slab hung in a frame. Both are perfectly serviceable, and uPVC is the cheaper option, but they behave differently over ten years.

• Rigidity: a composite slab does not flex when pushed, a uPVC panel can
• Colour: composite colour runs through the skin, uPVC foil can lift at the edges after long sun exposure
• Thickness: 48mm composite against roughly 28mm on most uPVC doors
• Cost: uPVC is typically the cheaper supply and fit, composite costs more up front
• Lifespan: we would expect a composite door to still look right at 15 years, and a foiled uPVC door to look tired sooner
• Both take the same grade of multi point lock, so security comes down to the cylinder either way

What is included in a fitted price

We quote supply and fit as one written figure, so there is nothing added on the day. A quote from us includes the survey, the door, the frame, the hardware, the fitting and the clean up.

• Free site survey and a written quote, no obligation and no pressure
• Removal and disposal of the old door and frame
• New outer frame fitted plumb to the reveal with hardwood packers
• Composite slab, chosen glass, chosen hardware and the security cylinder
• EPDM and silicone sealing inside and out, plus internal trims
• Threshold set and drainage checked so water runs away from the property
• 10 year product guarantee and 2 year fitting guarantee in writing
• Site left clean, old materials taken away the same day