Your front door serves a big purpose. Apart from being the main entryway to your home, it also gives you protection. A flimsy front door could be likened to a welcome sign inviting any thief in Virginia to just walk right through it.
On the other hand, a good enough front door is one that’s easy to go through, welcoming to guests, and sturdy enough to keep you safe. So if your door looks anything but sturdy and aesthetically pleasing, this could be a telling sign it needs to be replaced.
However, it’s not as simple as just picking any door from the first store you see in Virginia, taking out your old one, and then attaching your new one. Since your front door is also a big part of the design element of your home, it has to seam together with your interior and exterior for your home to appear well put together. With that said, here are three expert tips when replacing your front door.
1. Measure Your Old Door
It would be best to order a new door with the same size and dimension as those of your old door. That way, you wouldn’t have to undergo much work for your front door replacement. In measuring your old door, here are some metrics to abide by:
- Door size: Measure the height and width of your door very precisely. You could buy or get a door that’s exactly just that size from an established door company in your county. For example, if you live in Arlington, a good door company Arlington could provide you the exact door you need. If the measurements aren’t precise, you could round them up to the nearest inch size to make them more accurate.
- Exterior opening (or masonry opening if the surrounding wall of the door is made out of bricks or stone): Be sure to measure the outside of your door’s exterior casing from the bottom to the top-most part. If all else fails, you may order a door with a standard casing and just fill in the gaps afterward.
- Jamb width: Start from the backside of the interior to the back side of the exterior trim when measuring the jamb width.
2. Learn How To Safely Remove Your Old Door
Safely removing your old door entails more than just letting go of a few screws here and there. You’d have to first secure and protect your floor with a plastic sheet or cloth, given your old door’s going to be heavy.
Consider asking for assistance to do this job. Otherwise, the door could fall on you as well as damage the floor in your entryway. You surely wouldn’t want another expense for repair simply because you failed to take caution when removing your old door.
3. Choose The Right Type Of Front Door
Your door replacement task would also highly depend on the type of front door you’re going to add to your home. So be sure that before you even start removing your old door, you already have a good idea of the type of front door you’d like to replace it with.
Choosing the type of door would depend on key factors like the style of your home, your door’s size, and your budget. Considering all these, the following are three of the most common types of front doors you could choose from:
- Wood: Many doors are made of hardwood for many reasons. While it may be pricier, it’s also more durable. It could withstand exterior conditions and is easy to secure and lock for safety. Wooden doors are also thought to be classic, timeless, and elegant.
- Composite: These kinds of doors are a combination of various materials, usually made to conquer the problems with doors that are purely made of wood or unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (UPVC), for instance. These have a higher level of thermal resistance, and they’re sometimes more expensive than a pure wooden door.
- UPVC: It’s a safe plastic material that’s popular to homeowners because of its relatively low price as compared to its counterparts. Plus, it’s also water and weather resistant.
Conclusion
With these expert tips, you may be feeling more confident now with your ability to effectively replace your own door. But if after trying you feel replacing your door isn’t something you could do successfully, don’t hesitate to call in the services of experts. It’s always better to be safe than make big mistakes later on, which could result in an even bigger and more costly repair job.
Given that your front door is one of the very first things people are going to see about your home, of course you’d want to get this job right and accurately. A properly installed front door could give you a better-looking, enhanced, and safe front entry.
