Doors: the gateway to your house

Your front door should be attractive and inviting

Front doors are usually the first thing a prospect touches. Make sure your front door is in perfect working order, and is well-maintained. If painted, make sure the paint is in excellent condition.

One of the best tricks is to paint the door a strong contrasting color that draws attention, for example: paint the door RED!It immediately creates a favorable impression and draws attention. This works especially well if the rest of the front landscape is lacking.

Next, make sure the hardware is in pristine condition. Usually, just doing a little polishing and cleaning will do the trick.

Screen doors: Many homes have screen/storm doors. The reason for these are obvious, but they are often unattractive and in fact, distracting. If your storm door does not add appreciably to the entire front entrance experience, remove it. Store it somewhere so the new homeowners can use it if they want.

Installing New Exterior Doors

Normally we would not recommend replacing a front door with a new one, but if that door is in such bad shape, then it should done. There are numerous options available. Replacing an exterior door frame is a pretty straight forward job and could be done by anyone comfortable handling tools. The problem is that they are heavy, so make sure you have some help before removing the old door.

Like with any project, everything is pretty simple until you actually get into the job and find that hidden problem that should be addressed before continuing. The biggest problem with doors is finding rot on the sill, or in some cases the door framing being out of square. Other than that, replacing a front door is just a matter of removing the old one, installing the new hardware, and putting the door into position, making sure it is all square and centered before securing it to the framing.

Before purchasing a new door, take careful measurements and assessment of existing door, noting which direction the door swings. You'll want to match the new door with the old.

Exterior Wood Doors

• Most doors, even steel doors use wood, but all-wood doors have a real wood surface. Exterior wood doors are typically solid wood and not hollow core.

• Solid wood doors are extremely attractive, but do require annual maintenance to maintain their beauty and protect them from warping.

• Solid wood doors come in a variety of designs and they can be trimmed if necessary to fit existing openings where steel doors cannot. This only an issue if you are replacing just the door and not the entire door frame.

Fiberglass Exterior Doors

• Like solid wood doors, fiberglass doors come in a variety of styles with many of them mimicking wood. They are paintable, stainable.

• Fiberglass doors provide more insulation compared to solid wood.

• Fiberglass doors will not chip, warp, rot, or crack.

• Fiberglass is proven far superior to wood in strength, weather ability and durability.

Steel Doors

Steel doors offer higher security and lower maintenance costs, but it lacks the character of wood or fiberglass doors and probably should not be used for a front entry door.

• Steel doors usually have insulation-filled between the steel skin which improves its insulation quality.

• Steel is ideal for unprotected exposure to sun and moisture.

• Cannot be trimmed to fit existing opening.

• Steel doors can be more difficult to install because of their weight.

• Frames must be plumb/square for the door to fit properly.

• Fastening hardware may require a carbide-tipped drill bit.

• There is no exposed wood to warp, rot, bow or splinter. The door is susceptible to rust however, especially where salt might be used to de-ice the front porch.