Door Materials
Wood is used in several forms for doors. When appearance is unimportant and a low-cost door is required, it may be made of boards nailed together. When the boards are vertical and held together with a few horizontal boards, the door is called a batten door. Better-grade doors are made with panels set in a frame or with flush construction.
Paneled doors consist of solid wood or plywood panels held in place by verticals called stiles and horizontals known as rails (Fig. 11.60). The joints between panels and supporting members permit expansion and contraction of the wood with atmospheric changes. If the rails and stiles are made of a single piece of wood, the paneled door is called solid. When hardwood or better-quality woods are used, the doors generally are veneered; rails and stiles are made with cores of softwood sandwiched between the desired veneer.
Tempered glass or plastic may be used for panels. In exterior doors, the lights should be installed to prevent penetration of water, especially in veneered doors.
One way is to insert under the glass a piece of molding that extends through the door and is turned down over the outside face of the door to form a drip. Another way is to place a sheet-metal flashing under the removable outer molding that holds the glass. The flashing is turned up behind the inside face of the glass and down over the exterior of the door, with only a very narrow strip of the metal exposed.
Flush doors also may be solid or veneered. The veneered type has a core of softwood, while the flat faces may be hardwood veneers. When two piles are used for a face, they are set with grain perpendicular to each other.
Flush doors, in addition, may be of the hollow-core type. In that case, the surfaces are made of plywood and the core is a supporting grid. Edges of the core are solid wood boards.
Metal doors generally are constructed in one of three ways: cast as a single unit or separate frame and panel pieces; metal frame covered with sheet metal; and sheet metal over a wood or other type of insulating core. (See ANSI Standard Nomenclature for Steel Doors and Steel Door Frames, A123.1, and Recommended Standard Details, Steel Doors and Frames, Steel Door Institute, 30200 Detroit Rd., Cleveland, OH 44145-1967.)
Cast-metal doors are relatively high-priced. They are used principally for monumental structures.
Hollow metal doors may be of flush or panel design, with steel faces having a thickness of at least 20 ga. Flush doors incorporate steel stiffeners; or an insulation core, such as hydrous calcium silicate, polyurethane foam, or polystyrene foam; or a honeycomb core as a lightweight support for the faces (Figs. 11.61 and 11.62).
Voids between stiffeners may be filled with lightweight insulation. Panel doors may be of stile-and-rail or stile-and-panel construction with insulated panels. Also, a light-duty, 24-ga, steel-faced door with an insulated core is available.
Metal-clad (Kalamein) doors are of the swinging type only. They may be of flush or panel design, with metal-covered wood cores for stiles and rails and insulated panels covered with steel 24 ga or lighter.
Other Materials. Doors may be made wholly or partly transparent or translucent.
Lights may be made of tempered glass or plastic. Doors made completely of glass are pivoted at top and bottom because the weight makes it difficult to support them with hinges or butts.
Sliding doors of the collapsible accordian type generally consist of wood slats or a light steel frame covered with textile. Plastic coverings frequently are used.
Swinging Doors
These are doors hinged near one edge to rotate about a vertical axis. Swinging doors are hung on butts or hinges (Art. 11.65). The part of a doorway to which a door is hinged and against which it closes is known as the door frame. It consists of two verticals, commonly called jambs, and a horizontal member, known as the header (Figs. 11.60 and 11.61). Single-acting doors can swing 90 or more in only one direction; double-acting doors can swing 90 or more in each of two directions.
To stop drafts and passage of light, the header and jambs have a stop, or projection, extending the full height and width, against which the door closes. The projection may be integral with the frame, or formed by attaching a stop on the surface of the frame, or inset slightly.
Door frames for swinging wood doors generally are fastened to rough construction members known as rough bucks, and the joints between the frame and the wall are covered with casings, or trim. For steel door frames, the trim is often integral with the frame, which is attached to the wall with anchors. (Recommended Standard Details, Steel Doors and Frames, SDI 111, Steel Door Institute, 30200 Detroit Rd., Cleveland, OH 44145-1967.)
Swinging doors are constructed in a variety of ways: usually flush (Fig. 11.61);
stile and rail, with one or more recessed panels (Fig. 11.60); or stile and panel, with a wide center panel between hinge and lock stiles. Flush doors may be solid or hollow. Hollow doors usually are braced internally. Some of the types of bracing used for steel doors are shown in Fig. 11.62. Those with steel stiffeners (Fig. 11.62a to c) normally are thermally or acoustically insulated with a bat-type material or sprayed insulation. The core types (Fig. 11.62d and e) may have heavy-paper honeycomb, rigid foamed insulation, solid structural mineral blocking, or other bracing laminated to the door facings. (See also Art. 11.54.2.)
Wood or steel swinging doors and frames for them are available for ordinary applications in several stock sizes. Standard door thicknesses for these are 13â„8 in and 13â„4 in. The doors are fabricated to fit in openings with heights of 6 ft 8 in, 7 ft, or 7 ft 2 in. Standard opening widths for single doors are 24, 28, 30, 32, and 36 in. Single 13â„4-in stock doors are also available for opening widths of 40, 42, 44, and 48 in and heights of 8 ft. Standard opening widths for pairs of doors are twice as large as for single doors. (See SDI 100, Recommended Specifications for Standard Steel Doors and Frames, Steel Door Institute, 30200 Detroit Rd., Cleveland, OH 44145-1967.)
Nonstandard sizes are obtainable on special order, but certain precautions should be observed: Size and number of butts or hinges and offset pivots should be suitable for the door size. For rail-and-stile doors, check with the manufacturer to ensure that face areas will not be excessive for the stile width. Large doors should not be used where they will be exposed to strong winds. To prevent spreading of stiles of tall doors, push bars or other intermediate bar members should be attached to both stiles of doors over 8 ft high.
Package entrance doors are available from several manufacturers. The package includes a single door or pair of doors, door frame, and all hardware. Such doors offer the advantages of integrated design, assumption by the manufacturer of responsibility for satisfactory performance, usually quick delivery, and often cost savings.
Recommended mounting heights for hardware for swinging doors are shown in Fig. 11.63. For specific installations, refer to hardware templates supplied by door manufacturers.
Hand of Doors. The direction of swing, or hand, of each door must be known and specified in ordering such hardware as latches, locks, closers, and panic hardware, because the hand determines the type of operation required of them. The hand is determined with respect to the outside or key, or locking, side, following the conventions illustrated in Fig. 11.64.
Weatherstripping. To weatherproof the joint between the bottom of an exterior door and the threshold, a weatherstrip in the form of a hooked length of metal often is attached to the underside of the door. When the door is closed, the weatherstrip locks into the threshold to seal out water. Other types of weatherstripping, including plastic gaskets, generally are used for steel doors and may be installed on header and jambs (Recommended Weatherstripping for Standard Steel Doors and Frames, SDI 111-E, Steel Door Institute, 30200 Detroit Rd., Cleveland, OH 44145-1967).
