External doors
An external door keeps weather out, people out and heat in, which is why it is thicker, heavier and more expensive than an internal one. It is normally specified as a complete doorset, because the security and thermal performance belong to the leaf, frame, glazing and locks together.
- In this range
- 7 doors
- Guide price from
- £210 inc VAT
Everything below is built for an external opening: a thicker leaf, a construction that expects weather on one face and warm air on the other, and hardware that has a security job to do. That is why an external door costs more than the internal door it resembles, and why an internal door fitted in an exposed opening fails within a season.
Filter by the width you have measured and the material you want. The guidance underneath covers the parts that are easy to get wrong: how a front door differs from a back door, what the performance requirements actually attach to, and which opening to measure.
7 doors
Prices are guide prices including VAT, taken from the smallest size and plainest finish of each door. They are not an offer to sell — confirm the price for your size and finish before ordering.
Primed External Flush Door
A plain flat back door, primed and ready for paint. The least expensive external door here, and the sensible one on the opening that takes the boots, the bins and the dog.
- Primed hardwood
- 44mm
Guide price from4 sizes£210inc VATPrimed External 6-Panel Door
A six-panel hardwood front door supplied primed, for painting in whatever colour the street or the conservation officer expects.
- Primed hardwood
- 44mm
Guide price from3 sizes£237.60inc VATPrimed External Glazed Door
A glazed hardwood back door supplied primed — daylight into a utility or a kitchen, in a colour you choose rather than one the range chose.
- Primed hardwood
- 44mm
Guide price from3 sizes£268.80inc VATOak External 4-Panel Door
A four-panel front door in engineered oak, 44mm thick. The panelled shape a Victorian or Edwardian frontage was built for, in a construction meant to stand the weather.
- Engineered oak
- 44mm
Guide price from3 sizes£294inc VATOak External Boarded Door
Vertical boards with ledges across the back, cut from solid oak. The right door for a cottage, a barn conversion or an outbuilding, where a panelled front door looks imported.
- Solid oak
- 44mm
Guide price from4 sizes£318inc VATOak External 6-Panel Door
Six panels in engineered oak at 44mm — the busier of the two panelled front-door shapes, and the one a Victorian villa was more likely to have started with.
- Engineered oak
- 44mm
Guide price from3 sizes£322.80inc VATOak External Glazed Door
Glazed lights in an oak external frame, for a back door or a side entrance where the room behind it has no other daylight and a solid leaf would make it a cupboard.
- Engineered oak
- 44mm
Guide price from3 sizes£346.80inc VAT
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What makes a door an external door
An external door has three jobs an internal door does not: keep weather out, keep people out, and keep heat in. Each of those adds material, and material is why an external leaf is usually 44mm thick against the 35mm of a standard internal door, and why it weighs enough to need three hinges as a matter of course.
It is also why an internal door fitted in an external opening fails, and fails fast. The core is not built for the moisture, the finish is not built for the exposure, and the construction is not built for the sun hitting one face while the other stays cold. Doors fitted the wrong way round like this twist within a season.
A front door and a back door are different problems
The front door is the one people judge the house on, and it is usually the one with the security requirement, because it is visible, accessible and the door a locksmith or an insurer will ask about.
The back door is the one that takes the abuse. It is opened more often, it is more likely to face the weather, and it is more likely to be the one that gets a wet dog and a bag of compost through it. Specifying the same door for both is common and is usually the wrong call on one of them.
Security and thermal performance, honestly
Security for doors in new dwellings in England is usually addressed through Approved Document Q, which references a security standard for doorsets, and thermal performance through Approved Document L, which sets a maximum U-value for replacement doors. Both apply to the complete doorset — the leaf, the frame, the glazing and the locking hardware together — rather than to a leaf bought on its own.
[VERIFY: Approved Documents Q and L, current editions] and [NEEDS HUMAN SIGN-OFF] on any statement about which requirements apply to a specific building. Replacement doors in an existing home are treated differently from doors in a new dwelling, and getting that distinction wrong in either direction is expensive.
The practical point when you are comparing products: a lock, a cylinder and a hinge set are part of the performance, not accessories to it. A door quoted without them is not directly comparable with one quoted with them.
Measuring an external opening
External doors are far more often replaced as a complete doorset, frame and all, than internal ones are. If the frame is staying, measure the opening inside the existing frame. If the frame is going, measure the structural opening in the brickwork, which is a different and larger number.
Say which one you have measured when you ask anyone for a price. It is the single most common source of confusion on an external door order, and the two numbers can differ by 100mm or more.