ENTRY DOORS

Al Carrell: If you're building your new house, or maybe you're tired of your old front door, there are some things you ought to know about entry doors that are available today.

Michael Holigan: First off, most doors are now made out of steel, both on the inside and the outside. This means greater security and a lot less maintenance. The steel doors come with a foam core, which means an insulated door that's energy efficient.

A.C.: Another really great energy saving feature about this particular door unit is the fact that you have weather stripping all the way around, including on the bottom of the door. One thing that you want to be cautious about though, when the painters get ready to go, they're going to pull this out so they can get a better paint job going. Be sure they put it back in place.

M.H.: Also make sure that when your door frame is installed, they go ahead and put foam all the way around the door; top, bottom and side. This will prevent any air from infiltrating around the frame itself, just like the weather stripping around the door.

A.C.: A very common problem with doors is water that blows up here and goes under the door. And this has a very special feature. We're going to take up this threshold and we'll show you what we're talking about.

M.H.: If any water gets in up past our gasket, instead of coming inside the house it will go down in the threshold and then go out these channels. Let's pour a little in to demonstrate.

A.C.: So, the water stays outside where it belongs. Now maybe you're looking for La French doors, and if you are, lets see what Michael's got for us.

M.H.: We get a number of letters from people that are building a home or remodeling their existing home and want to add French doors. But there is a number of choices and no one really knows where to begin. But we've got Dominic, and Dominic, you know where to start with French doors. What do we look for?

Dominic Truniger: A very good question, Michael. There are a couple of key things you want to look for in French doors. One is, as this door illustrates, you have the warmth and beauty of wood. Very solid wood on the sides and on the bottom and top. You also want to look for excellent hardware. These are solid brass handles and these handles and hardware sets are very unique in that, when you open the door, you can see, it goes the full perimeter of the door with three points along the stile of the door - top, center and bottom. And that will keep the door tight against the weatherstrip, but also, it will provide excellent security and safety for the home.

M.H.: Yeah, I noticed, you've actually moving plates in when you twist the lock.

D.T.: Yes.

M.H.: So the top, bottom and also the dead bolt as well. Harder to kick in.

D.T.: Absolutely. Very hard to kick in and a great security help.

M.H.: 19% of all break-ins are at the doors so that's going to be a big benefit.

D.T.: Without a doubt. And the second benefit that I mentioned too, was the fact that these type of doors, you want to make sure they're very, very well weatherstripped. And at Crestline we do put full weatherstrip completely around the door - top, cen ter and bottom as well.

M.H.: I notice over here behind you, next to the weatherstripping, you've got 5 hinges instead of 3. Why's that?

D.T.: Well, very good question as well. What you want to do, the more hinges you have, the more stability, the more strength that you're going to provide this door. You've got a lot of weight on this door that's suspended by these hinges, so 5 is better than three.

M.H.: Yeah, that makes sense. How about the exterior? You've clad it in aluminum here. Why that?

D.T.: Right. The reason we do that is everybody's very tight on time, we want to make sure that you can spend your time with your family instead of your weekends painting doors. So we put a maintenance free aluminum exterior on these doors and a number of colors to match the exterior that you'd like.

M.H.: I like the word maintenance free.

D.T.: Absolutely.

M.H.: Sounds good.

Episode 41 1996 - 97 Season

| Entry Doors | Inside Mounted Treatments | Choosing Appliances | Stove Tip Bracket | Wood Frame Windows | RainhandleR | Outside Mounted Treatments | Impact of Divorce |

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