Hi
I’m having a new house built and am in the process of choosing a front door. The door is a 4080. We live near Phoenix Arizona — so the door will be subjected to the desert heat. The front door will be under cover and faces due north, so not much sun exposure.
I’ve talked with 2 door companies. Company X says they sell a lot of cedar exterior doors and that they hold up well. A 2-1/4″ thick front door (2 panel; nothing too fancy, it’s expensive enough already!) is about $1600.
Company Y says they won’t make a front door out of cedar because “it will fall apart.” They want to sell me a door made out of cherry or mesquite for substantially more money.
Should I be concerned about cedar for exterior door material? Company X says they use four 4-1/2″ hinges to hang a door of this size. That certainly seems adequate to me.
Any comments or opinions? Thanks!
Replies
What kind and grade of cedar?
Yes, it can work out fine if built right
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Two competitors in your market are Craftsmen in Wood and Southwest Door. Both make the stiles and rails for their 2-1/4-inch doors with a "stave" core, and laminations of the "show wood" on faces and edges. So your species is just a facing, for the structural framework of the door.
The most cost effective species is going to be alder. What you will get in a paneled door will be the laminated stiles and rails, and solid wood panels.
Alder can be stained and finished to look like cherry or mahogany.
I built a front door for my own house out of Western Red Cedar. It was a standard height and 36" wide, laminated with three layers of wood, each about 1/2 to 5/8 inch thick. The frame was all cedar too. It had panels in the lower half, with insulated glass in the upper half. I was careful to use good screws and hinges and install everything precisely.
It worked out really well. I had no problems with the door. Being a soft wood, it can dent easily, but it insulates well. It actually felt warmer to the touch than my R21 wall in sub zero temperatures. It's beginning to weather to a nice gray like I want. If a cedar door is well made with all the proper joinery it certainly will not "fall apart".
Three well made heavy hinges would be adequate, so four is a mark of quality.
I think cherry would look strange on a southwestern home.
Here's a link to some old images of the door. http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=35025.3
Thanks for the input.
The company I am in the process of placing the order with is Scottsdale Custom, who buys direct from SouthWest Door.
I'll find out what type of cedar.
Thanks again; I feel better about this decision!
Dan.
I saw quite a few cedar doors when I was in Bermuda. Bermudian cedar is quite rare now so they use Virginia Cedar instead. I'm not sure how it compares to Western Red.
They're wet and hot to moderate, you're dry and hot to moderate, so take that into account. But there are cedar doors on the island probably going on a few hundred years old.
Since they build saunas out of the stuff I'd assume it can handle the heat.
About the doors falling apart, and I'm just guessing here, maybe they've seen the glue fail in the heat on the rail/stile joints? Cedar has some oils in it, so you could clean the joints with acetone, IIRC, like you might with teak to ensure the glue gets into the wood fibers properly. Pure speculation, of course.