Cost effective new front door

Gazelle1985

Hi, we need a new front door, but we are planning to move in the next few years, so don't particularly want to spends thousands. We're looking at composite or UPVC, and any colour but white. Has anyone got any recommendations? Obviously the fitting will also be expensive (we're in SE London)...

mebu60

I bought a composite door from Solidor about £1k about 10 years ago knowing that I was likely to move a couple of years later, which I did. It's the first contact point for prospective buyers so needs to create the right impression.

Door itself was fine. It was a traditional style with two small glass windows at the top. Door was dark green and they supplied the colour code so I was able to get paint made up to paint the garage doors to match. 

Bigphil1474

We got a composite door about 10 years ago as well, we sold our house earlier this year. The buyers actually commented that they thought it looked new. I wouldn't buy UPVC again myself. 

Kiran

Did the same with a composite door on the last house I sold. Definitely looked smarter than the UPVC doors on the neighbouring houses

Gazelle1985

We actually have a composite door at the moment and it's developed cracks in the outer "skin". Not sure I can really see much difference between composite and UPVC - do they really look that different?

Kiran

From an aesthetic point of view, that's a personal preference. A composite door is definitely more solid and secure than a upvc one. Does your door face south and is it a dark colour by any chance? 

Bigphil1474

Our old UPVC door used to look pink when the sun shone on it, and was definitely flexible. Could have just been a poor quality one, but we didn't have the same issues with composite, plus the fittings were far more robust, particularly the lock.

Gazelle1985

Kiran said:

From an aesthetic point of view, that's a personal preference. A composite door is definitely more solid and secure than a upvc one. Does your door face south and is it a dark colour by any chance? 

It's dark green and faces north west and gets the full heat of the sun in the afternoon and evening in the summer, so I suspect this is the reason for the cracks. Annoyingly it's in perfect condition apart from that!

twopenny

Worth getting something that looks nice for the forseeable as that's the first thing buyers will see  and set the tone for their attitude to the rest of the house.

Just be aware that many have colour on the outside and white inside.

I wanted a new door but rejected it because of the white inside as there's so many white doors in the hall. If anyone knows different that would be welcome