Have you noticed that your front door is looking a little drab recently? Or noticed a draft making its way into your home? Perhaps it’s time for a door replacement. In which case, we recommend that you opt for a uPVC front door.
As a material, uPVC has a number of beneficial characteristics that make it an ideal choice for your front door, including those that have the potential to make the issues you are experiencing with your current door a thing of the past.
Keep reading to learn why a uPVC door could be beneficial for you.
Benefits of uPVC Bespoke Doors
Security
Having a secure home is not only important for your personal safety and the protection of your belongings, but for the sake of your peace of mind. When it comes to doors, uPVC doors are strong and sturdy, with a secure frame that will make it harder for any intruders to attempt a break in.
More often than not, intruders will attempt to break in by damaging the lock rather than the door itself, since the difficulty of breaking through the door would not make it worth it, as it would take too long and would draw too much attention.
This means that a uPVC door used in conjunction with a secure locking system would provide for an extremely secure entrance point for your home.
Insulation
uPVC casing is made with insulating materials sandwiched in the middle, which gives it excellent thermal properties that help in the regulation of temperature in your home. This makes uPVC doors ideal for all times of year, since it will keep your house cooler in the summer by stopping heat from entering your home, whilst warm in the winter by stopping heat escaping from your home.
They also seal securely within the door frame, so no heat can escape around the sides of your door or through it. This makes uPVC doors extremely energy efficient; since more heat will be retained in your home, less energy is needed to warm up your home to replace any heat that would otherwise be lost.
As well as reducing heat transfer between the inside and outside, this also means that noise pollution is also reduced, making uPVC doors perfect for those who live on busy streets, main roads or in urban areas where traffic and late night social gatherings are likely to be loud.
Maintenance
Unlike other materials (such as wood), uPVC is resistant to various wet and windy weather conditions that the UK regularly experiences. They can last for many years without showing signs of weathering, with no need for regular or annual sanding, varnishing or repainting.
All that is required to clean a uPVC door is a bit of warm soapy water to remove any dirt or grime in order to avoid stains from showing.
This is excellent for busy individuals and families that want their house to appear neat and tidy without needing to regularly upkeep and maintain its appearance. What’s better is that uPVC doors look clean and attractive without looking cheap – which is a win-win considering that they are affordable to install.
Durability
Since they are resistant to rot, corrosion, warping and fading, uPVC doors will not only keep their visual appeal for years to come, but this means their durability also remains strong throughout the years.
This makes them a cost effective choice of door in the long run, since their beneficial qualities will remain practical for a long time (keeping your home secure, regulating temperature, remaining aesthetically pleasing) before they will eventually need to be replaced.
Customisable
Given that they are widely manufactured nowadays, advancements in the production of uPVC doors means they are highly customisable rather than being available in simply plain white, as was the case originally.
They can be made in various colours, allowing you to choose one that suits the rest of your home or one that you simply like, as well as the option for them to be finished with different textures – such as a wood grain appearance for a more traditional look, or a smooth finish for more contemporary houses.
Signs Your Front Door Needs Replacing
If you’re experiencing issues with your front door that are making it inefficient in its purpose, then the benefits that a uPVC door offers over others could make it the answer to fix your problems, preventing it from happening in the future.
Trouble Opening and Closing
If you’re having trouble opening and/or closing your door because it keeps getting stuck, then this is an indicator that the doorframe has become warped. This is most common with timber door frames.
When there is a rise in humidity in the air or weather conditions have been particularly wet, then the moisture in the air will be soaked into the wood. This excess moisture causes the wood to swell, only to then shrink again when it dries out. Wood is also affected by temperature, tending to expand with excessive or prolonged heat.
Even though this movement within the wood may be slight, it is still enough to affect the structural sureness of your door, especially the longer expansion and shrinkage regularly occurs. The result is the door not fitting in the frame as it should, which is why you may be having trouble opening and closing it without resistance.
A uPVC door is unaffected by humidity levels and temperature changes, meaning it can withstand all weather without warping. As such, your door will operate smoothly with a uPVC for many years, just as well as when it was first installed.
Wear and Tear
If you’ve had your door for many years, then there’s a high chance that it will be showing signs of wear and tear. Traditional timber doors will eventually show signs of peeling and cracking as they age, while some will even begin to simply fall apart.
This degradation of quality is usually accelerated by the weather conditions, which will amplify any wear and tear.
Such damage usually requires extensive maintenance, whereby you would need to sand your door in order to remove peeling and make it smooth again, after which a fresh coat of paint would also be required. Though a protective coating may be applied, the time and expense of having to complete all these and the outcome they produce are not worth it in comparison to replacing your door with a uPVC door instead.
Its high durability, resistance to weather and low maintenance means it will last a lot longer before signs of wear and tear appear, with hardly any maintenance required other than the odd wipe clean.
Drafts
Experiencing cold drafts through your door is an indicator that it isn’t insulating your home as well as it should be. Though dry wood is a good insulator due to the air pockets present within it, as soon as moisture becomes present within it then these insulating qualities are lost.
Furthermore, if your wooden door and frame become warped or even slightly disjointed, then this creates gaps in the seal between the two, allowing cold air to enter your home and create a draft.
This also reduces the energy efficiency of your home, meaning you will lose more money over the years from higher heating bills (which are extortionate at the moment in the cost of living crisis), which could be avoided if you had a more efficient front door.
As you’ll now know, uPVC will not warp or become disjointed over time, it has excellent insulating properties and is cheap to install. All these benefits make it the wise choice to replace your front door with a uPVC door, meaning there will be no more cold draft sneaking its way into your home and your energy usage will become much more efficient.
Bespoke Doors: From Aluminium Garden Doors to uPVC Stable Doors
If you think it’s time to finally upgrade your front door, Prolux has a quality range of doors to keep your home secure.
Being one of Cornwall’s leading door specialists, you should come to us if you’re after bespoke doors that can be designed with your home in mind. We supply timber, uPVC and aluminium doors, as well windows and other glazing products.
Get in touch with us today for your free consultation.