New composite front door, frame and glass window

randomspam

Hello,

Just thought I'd put down my experiences to help other people who may search for help as I do.

We're refurbing our 3 bed terrace in South East London and we've just had a quote from Sutton Windows for a Wood grain effect, royal blue, composite door, 2 panes of patterned glass, new frame and also a pane of opaque glass that goes above the door, about 80 x 40 cm.

Came in at £1622, with a 6 week lead time, I thought this was rather steep, waiting for 2 more quotes.

Cheers
Rs

thebaldwindowfitter

that may well be a reasonable price .this company may have seen other work involved than JUST fitting a door and frame .If the door is also a Rockdoor which is what we fit you will pay more than other composite doors on the market.the patterened glass you have chosen if these are bevels then these can vary in price from £95-280 .
i also think it a little unfair that you have named this company ,your post may put people off using them because YOU think there price is steep having no idea of the cost .

The_Governor

I had a composite door put in with glass panels floor to ceiling on either side (four panels) and it cost less than a thousand pounds.

It took them about an hour and a half to fit it, materials were around £700 ish.

They were doing it as part of a larger job replacing the windows so obviously that cuts down on the labour cost a bit.

randomspam

The door is not a rockdoor, I realise they have a premium attached to them, the work they quoted for was removing the frame, glass and door and then replacing them all. I didn't feel there is anything wrong with mentioning the company name, I wasn't negative in any way, just stated a name, a price, and a lead time. When searching on the net I personally find it useful to know what kind of price brackets different companies fall into, sure every circumstance is different but therefore I would expect people to seek their own quotes and not blindly follow someone elses opinion.

I have now had 4 other quotes from local builders for the same job with a similarly specced composite door, they have all been approx £900.

thebaldwindowfitter

randomspam wrote: »

I didn't feel there is anything wrong with mentioning the company name, I wasn't negative in any way, just stated a name, a price, and a lead time. When searching on the net I personally find it useful to know what kind of price brackets different companies fall into, sure every circumstance is different but therefore I would expect people to seek their own quotes and not blindly follow someone elses opinion.

I have now had 4 other quotes from local builders for the same job with a similarly specced composite door, they have all been approx £900.

in your first post you mention the companies name and in this post you say they are £700 dearer when in the first instance you said there price was steep yet had no idea of how much the job would cost form anywhere else .people do take a lot of notice of this forum i have had people phone me from all over the uk for advice .local builders might do it cheaper are you getting the same guarantees as this company give?.now you have ellaborated on what your quote is for then yes the price is slightly high being that the door would not be a rockdoor

randomspam

Ah well this is interesting, you've hit the nail on the head there yourself, in my first post I only said it was steep in my opinion because I've visited this and many other forums myself and from what I've read I believed it should be around £1000 for a similar type of job. If I had absolutely zero idea what it would cost, I wouldn't have a leg to stand on you're right, I would have asked for an opinion from other people whether it was a bit much. If you search this forum for door quotes you will see they generally come in at less than £1000 thus proving my initial belief (derived from researching here and elsewhere) that it was a bit OTT. Subsequently my recent posts will continue to bolster the same personal experience of a typical door/frame fitting cost.

The door is guaranteed accordingly certainly, as for the work, that I admit I do not know but I would not pay £700 for a guarantee of work.

thebaldwindowfitter

so in your first post you had an idea of price thought the price was a bit steep so thought you would name and shame them for all to see.if you knew so much what was your reason for posting please tell unless it was purely to cause problems for this company.i see from your post record you havent posted often and most have been on your own thread.most people on this forum do not mention company names in there postings

ds1980

get one from b & q £400 and do it your self.

not that hard fitting a door. especially if your replacing old for new.

thats what i'm doing but need a side panel and have asked on other forum about whether these can be separate or need to be fused.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1400739

there are a number of online places you can buy composite for about £400-£500 then get a joiner to fit. Joiner would charge £100 or so.

ken84

The_Governor wrote: »

I had a composite door put in with glass panels floor to ceiling on either side (four panels) and it cost less than a thousand pounds.

It took them about an hour and a half to fit it, materials were around £700 ish.

They were doing it as part of a larger job replacing the windows so obviously that cuts down on the labour cost a bit.

Is there any advice you can give on what makes a good door? I've been looking at various types, and also wondering whether to get it done at the same time as my windows, to make it cheaper. My house has old windows and doors in need of an upgrade in security and energy efficiency, and from what I can see online I figured a composite door would be better than a upvc one. It's tricky because there are many products our there and it's difficult to decide what's best.

thebaldwindowfitter

ken84 wrote: »

Is there any advice you can give on what makes a good door? I've been looking at various types, and also wondering whether to get it done at the same time as my windows, to make it cheaper. My house has old windows and doors in need of an upgrade in security and energy efficiency, and from what I can see online I figured a composite door would be better than a upvc one. It's tricky because there are many products our there and it's difficult to decide what's best.

Some composite doors are better than upvc doors but be wary because a lot of cheaper doors are made from slabs imported from china and some are just a plastic skin glued to a timber core .we use rockdoors considering them the best, there are cheaper but for the saving of £50 -100 we would rather stick with rockdoor who have been producing composite doors for some 14 years now and whos parent company gap have been trading 17 .you pays your money and takes your choice .and yes im sure it will work out cheaper having the door done with your windows

ken84

a6windows wrote: »

we use rockdoors considering them the best, there are cheaper but for the saving of £50 -100 we would rather stick with rockdoor who have been producing composite doors for some 14 years now and whos parent company gap have been trading 17 .you pays your money and takes your choice .and yes im sure it will work out cheaper having the door done with your windows

thanks very much for that, i've since been looking at rockdoor.com and reading various sites to research a bit more. other than build quality, security seems to be a main feature, and i've seen things about security testing and british standards pas23 and pas24, which seem to be the benchmark - though rockdoors don't have those..? Is there any advice you can give about what to look for in security features?