Wood

Most commonly doors are manufactured in wood. For exterior doors, a dense hardwood such as oak is used as it is particularly strong and durable. Various hardwoods are available and their colour can vary considerably, so if you plan to leave your door looking natural by protecting it with varnish, ensure you select a wood that will complement your colour scheme.

Interior doors may again be manufactured in various woods and these can look very attractive when simply waxed or varnished, but if you plan to paint your doors, consider using cheaper pine or hollow-core doors.

Wood Look

Even when not constructed from wood, the surface layer of most doors will be embossed with an artificial grain to look like wood. These fibreglass-composite doors are made with a core of rigid insulation which is clad in a fibre-reinforced polymer.

Steel doors, made of a core of rigid foam surrounded by heavy-gauge galvanised steel, are very strong, but can rarely achieve a convincing imitation of wood.

Glass

Where it is important to allow light or a view through the door, glass panels can be incorporated into the door, and indeed the whole door can be constructed from a double-glazed glass panel with a metal frame.

It is always advisable to use safety glass in all glazed areas of a door, since slamming can cause the glass to break. It is also a key part of the building regulations that safety glass is used in full glazed and lower glazed door panels.

• Click here for Building Regulations Part N: Glazing Safety

UPVC

Unplasticised Polyvinyl Chloride (UPVC) doors have fascias made of plastic (or PVC) which are mounted on a reinforced frame. This type of door is most commonly added to a property while double glazed windows are simultaneously being mounted in the immediate surrounding wall, or indeed the whole property so that a matching look can be achieved.

Most commonly, UPVC doors are white, but various shades and textures of ‘wood-look’ are also available. The key benefit of these doors is that they are extremely low maintenance as the plastic surfaces do not require regular painting to protect them from the weather.

Other materials

Doors can also be constructed from moulded hardboard panels, pressed steel and ABS plastic (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene);

Moulded hardboard

Hardwood panels offer a very cheap alternative to wood for internal use only. The panels can be painted, but the finish is still poor.

Pressed Steel

Pressed steel doors are both strong and secure, and most appropriate for outbuildings, large sheds and temporary structures. They can be painted, but will require regular maintenance to keep rust free.

The surface can be embossed with a woodgrain texture, but this isn't a terribly convincing impression of real wood.

Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene plastic

ABS plastic, more commonly used to manufacture car bumpers, has been used to make garage doors but is now also being applied to smaller doors. These doors tend to be resistant to dents and knocks, and they can be embossed with a convincing low maintenance woodgrain texture which can be painted.

The downside is that these doors tend to be considerably more expensive than alternative materials.

Further information and useful links

• Types of door
• Door hanging options
• How to hang a door
• Guide to fire doors
• Common sizes of door
• Full list of windows & doors topics

• Find a Door supplier near you
• Find a Carpenter near you