Doors that seal, slide and lock

Doors fail in ways windows do not. A slider that will not move usually has worn rollers or a track that has gone out of square as the house settled, and swapping the panel without fixing that just moves the problem. An entry door that sticks in summer and rattles in winter is telling you the frame, not the slab, is the issue. So we measure the opening, check the frame for square and the sill for rot, and tell you whether this is a slab swap, a pre-hung unit or a full frame replacement before anything is ordered. Patio sliders, French pairs, multi-slide and entry doors all get ordered to your opening. On install day we set the unit plumb, shim it properly, seal the threshold and weatherstrip it, then adjust the hardware so the door latches without a push.

Which door you are actually asking for

Entry doors are the front and side doors, opaque or lightly glazed, and the choice is mostly material: steel is hardest to kick through and easiest to dent, fiberglass tolerates our sun without swelling or warping, and wood looks best but asks for the most maintenance on a west-facing entry with no porch cover.

Sliding patio doors run on a track inside a fixed frame. One panel slides, one is fixed. They take no swing space, which is why they are on the back of almost every tract house here, and they are the easiest patio door to make weathertight. Rollers are the wear part.

French doors are a hinged pair, in-swing or out-swing. They open the full width, they look better than a slider, and they need clear floor space on the swing side. Out-swing sheds water better; in-swing keeps leaves off the patio furniture. Weatherstripping at the meeting stiles matters more here than anywhere.

Multi-slide and bi-fold doors stack or pocket several large panels to open a whole wall. They are the most involved install here: the opening is usually structural, the sill has to be set dead flat, and the track detail decides whether it still glides in five years.

Screen options are on the retractable screens page.

Pre-hung or slab

A pre-hung door comes already hung on its hinges in a new frame, with the jambs, sill and weatherstripping as one assembly. It is what we install in most cases, because a new frame is the only way to fix a jamb that has moved, a sill that has rotted, or an opening that was never square.

A slab is the door alone, drilled and hung into the existing frame. It is the right answer only when the existing frame and threshold are genuinely sound and square and you want a different door in them. If the old door sticks, drags or lets daylight through at the corners, the frame is the problem and a slab will not fix it.

Thresholds, sills and water

The threshold is where doors fail. Under every exterior door there should be a sill pan or flashed sill that sends water back outside instead of into the subfloor. Most thresholds are adjustable, the strip lifts or drops on screws to meet the door sweep, and that adjustment is what closes the draft and the light gap at the bottom. If you want a flush, low-profile threshold for wheelchair or walker access, say so at the measure: it changes the sill and drainage detail.

Security

The lock is rarely the weak point; the frame is. Doors we hang get long screws through the strike plate and hinges into the framing, not just the jamb, so the door cannot be kicked off its frame. Beyond that: a deadbolt with a full one-inch throw, glass near the lock kept out of arm’s reach or laminated, and multipoint hardware on French and patio doors, which locks at head and sill as well as the middle. Sliders get an anti-lift adjustment so the panel cannot be lifted off its track.

The energy code applies to glass doors

A mostly-glass door is fenestration as far as Title 24 is concerned. In Climate Zone 10, Riverside and the cities around it, that means the same prescriptive targets as a window: U-factor 0.30 or lower, SHGC 0.23 or lower, verified on the NFRC label. West-facing patio glass is the single biggest solar gain in most of these houses, so SHGC is the number to read. Opaque entry doors are treated differently. More in what the code requires here.

Financing is available. No rates, terms or lender are published here; you get the current options in writing before committing.

Permits, and when the opening changes

Replacing a door in an existing opening usually does not need a permit. Making the opening bigger, or cutting a new one, does, because that is structural work with a header in it. Rules vary by city across our area, so we check for your address, pull the permit where one is needed and meet the inspector.

Where we do this work

We work out of Riverside and install doors across the Inland Empire, most often in Riverside, Corona, Jurupa Valley and Moreno Valley, and down into Temecula, and west into Orange County and Los Angeles County, in cities such as Yorba Linda and Claremont. Each has its own permit process and utility, which is why each has its own page; the full list is on service areas. To get measured, book a free estimate.