Hi All

I'm looking into to options for reinstating the original entrance door to our house. The bottom half was bricked up and the top half replaced with a window many years ago. The lintel is still in place above the window and, in fact, runs across most of the wall.

Anyway, we'd like to reinstate the original door and I've asked a local chap about how much this might cost. To recreate the opening for a standard sized front door which will replace the current window is going to be EUR1000+ (we're in France). I was quite surprised by this but was told that there's more to it than meets the eye and I was led to feel that I was being unreasonable. Am I really? There's only about 130cm of wall to remove once the window's out and I can do that myself and it's a timber framed, cob house so surely it can't be that hard to make an opening? Can it? But then comes the question of the door and frame. We seem to have two choices here.

Choice 1 is to buy a second hand oak door in the UK which seems to be from about GBP400 with frame and seems quite reasonable and is my wife's preferred option as we're over there quite regularly and can pick one up.

Choice 2 is to have a door and frame made. This is the far more interesting option in my opinion and we even have oak planks that can be used having recently removed some flooring. These are about 3m in length, are all 5cm thick and range in width from about 22-29cm. They would make a lovely, solid front door. Thing is, even though we'd be supplying the wood, we've been given a ballpark figure of EUR1000+ to make it which sounds a lot to me but then I don't know how to make a proper door and could again be being unreasonable as I am a bit of a tightwad. There seems to be a pattern emerging and I suspect that fitting it would also cost EUR1000+ (then +VAT to all prices quoted).

So, what I'm wondering is whether the job of making the opening is really that tricky. Like I said, it's a timber framed, cob house so if I were to go about opening it up myself, is there something I need to know first? Also, is there really EUR1000+ of work involved in making a front door? We don't want anything fancy i.e. it won't be arched, won't contain any glass and won't be covered in fancy ironwork. We would also be transporting the wood to the bloke and bringing back a door if we decided to use him.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Thanks

Joe

Most of the cost will be in the door and frame, which will be expensive if you want something decent. Even a cheap and nasty door and frame will cost a few hundred pounds, so €1000 for the whole job doesn't sound too far off to me (not knowing labour rates in France).

Joe,

Without seeing the job I can't say for sure whether or not 1000 euro for opening up the window is excessive, but it certainly sounds so. Material costs will be minimal and if the job is as straightforward as you suggest I'd be surprised if it couldn't be done in a single day.

As for making an oak door and frame, 1000 euros does sound excessive, even more so if you are supplying the oak. I would easily make the door and frame in the workshop in a day, another day to install it.
You can buy a solid oak door from Screwfix for £180 (inc VAT). No idea of the quality but the spec shows that it's 34kg and has a u-value of 2.3, which suggests it probably around 2" thick.

However, I agree with Damon. You should be aiming for a door with a u-value of no more than 1.8, which you'll struggle to get from 2" thick solid oak.

Having had bad experiences with bought-in exterior doors in the past, I built my own last time - a core of 25mm EPS between between 12mm exterior ply panels, sealed with epoxy and then marine paint. U-value of less than 1. Material cost of less than £50 each.

Malcolm

The price for the door opening sounds a tad expensive - unless there is a need to re-route pipework or electrical cables, or make some kind of support frame for the opening. Hard to tell from here.

The price for having an oak door custom made, from your material, does not sound excessive. While it's good to reuse planks you have, for the carpenter it probably means more work than planks from his usual supply. Also hope you are keeping the planks somewhere really, really dry .

Simple suggestion; make the opening yourself, have the door made, and installed, by the doormaker.

All the best,
Dan

Actually Joe, 'Cwatters' and 'woodcutter' raise a point, what DESIGN of door are you actually looking for? And are you really concerned with being "green" or "energy efficient"?

As the door will be going into brickwork the fitting and making good would take a day, tops. Although that's in the UK. Given the French penchant for long lunches...!

You'll have googled for the cost of hardwood doors and frames so will know the range of styles and prices available. I've just finished preparing the two new front doors for this place and we eventually got them from Wickes, the quality is very good and the prices extremely competitive. First time I've used them and I'll use them again.

If you do decide to go for bespoke in oak then you're at the mercy of the market. I was daft enough to make solid oak (44mm thick) doors, with frame, for about £750 fitted. They were of "simple" design and took a chargeable day (spread over two days) to make (excluding 'paint' finishing) and three hours to fit.

(Just realised I haven't got a picture of one of those doors. Damn. Have to go into town later anyway so will call in and take one and post it here later. It'll give you an idea of comparitive cost.)

Mark, it has to be VERY old oak to get that difficult to work. I suspect the cursing and swearing had more to do with dull tool edges than the hardness of the oak, or probably a combination of the two!