Doors not only have to look good but they are a mechanical device that takes some ingenuity to work well in a less then perfectly built house.
I have always considered my self mechanically inclined and have been in construction
most of my life. One of my hobbies growing up was carpentry work, working in my good friends garage where his father had a slew of wood working tools. Taking wood and metal shop from 8th grade through high school. My first real job out of high school was working in a door company. I machined hundreds of doors and later worked for a door installer were we installed doors and hardware all day every day in new construction homes.
Even with all of that when it came time to hanging doors in existing homes, with floors already installed and walls painted it took another 5 years to hone my craft. That is about 10 years of working with doors before I felt comfortable hanging doors and could handle the variety of challenges that each door job has. Floors are uneven, walls are not plumb, on one side of a door way the wall may slant a degree to several degrees one way and the other wall the other way but where the two doors meet it has to line up. Adjacent walls my also be out of plumb and be 2” from the door frame at the bottom and 2-1/2” or more at the top. The header and floor may slope a 1/4” and sometimes more. Yet when I am done, my doors have to not only look good but work well.
Door have a mechanical function. There are angles and bevels required to know, boring holes in a $5000 pair of doors leaves no room for mistakes or inaccuracy. The space between the door and jamb needs to be consistent yet leave a margin for swelling in the wet weather and contracting in dry weather. The weather strip needs to seal around the door while not pressing on it so much that the door does not latch easily. The latch of the lock need to line up with the strike plate so the lock goes in completely and with almost no effort yet still not rattle. The moldings need custom angles when the walls are not square.
When a good door hanger is done he has done a hundred calculations and hours of sawing, planing, boring, mitering, and adjusting. All while make it secure, hiding the larger screws and leaving the minim dimples for the finish nails that hold the trim.
In the beginning even learning how to take a door off a stack and carrying it has to be learned. Do it wrong and you might drag a corner of a door on another door and scratch it. Entry doors are big and weigh 100 lbs yet you have to be able to maneuver it into a house and spin and rotate to the upright position without damaging a wall , ceiling, or expensive floor.
All in all for me it was 10 years to be able to consider my self good enough to work in nice homes with high quality doors. With a lifetime of being in construction I find doors to be the most challenging but also the most rewarding. It is one phase of constructions that most always delights the homeowners and even the neighbors who have been know to pull up a lawn chair and watch us work. I have done room additions, remodeled offices, done kitchen make overs but doing a nice set of entry doors seems to get the most attention and smiles from the people who see the transformation the doors make.
We recently worked on a multi million dollar historic restoration in Claremont. Although our doors were a relatively small part of the project they got more attention then any other improvement to the historic building. The same happened with a exquisite mid century custom built home in Pasadena. The front door I designed was the talk of the open house.
It is very gratifying to work on multi million dollar homes and hear people rave about the doors.
Most jobs are not so grandiose. We do doors of all types; it could be putting a simple fiberglass door on the exit of a garage. We do interior doors from basic to ornate, simple wardrobe doors to ones with custom glass.
We do doors every day and all types. No matter what the door requirements are the same. It must be installed correctly, function well, and be secure.
So to answer the question “why is it so hard to find a good door installer?” Good door hangers are intelligent, and since we are in your home they also have to be clean, careful, and really care about you as well as the work they are doing for you. They need to be efficient but not in a hurry, and polite. They also have to spend years training. In all it is a hard combination to find.
At D.P. Door Company we are fortunate to have installers with the right stuff. If you read our yelp reviews they rave about our installers as well as the service of our office staff (who also have decades of experience). In our showroom Terry or Shirley have been known to spend and hour or more helping answer questions and helping our potential customers pick out the right door for their home.
We have the largest showroom around and displays designed for the homes in our area. At our Rancho Cucamonga showroom we have 3 displays built for our Claremont customers who often have 10’ wide patio doors.
We have the narrower 5’ double entry doors and even door with two sides lites in 5’. Most door companies in the U.S. have only 6’ wide but Claremont, Upland and Rancho Cucamonga have these smaller then normal entry door ways.
We developed a door with two sidelight system that one of the side panels opens giving you room to move furniture similar to a double door; we have two displays of this system but can be done with most doors we carry.
The wall thickness determine the jamb width, our jambs are custom ordered to fit properly.
When we put in Double doors we put matching door handles on each door (one active and one inactive); It looks so much better that way.
When we are done we clean up, some customers say the place was cleaner then when we got there.
We try to do every thing that you would expect from a custom shop, yet we often cost less then other places. We only charge enough to stay in business and have for 35years. The price we quote in our showroom for installed doors generally includes tax, hardware, frame, threshold, weatherstrip, trim and labor. For entry doors it also usually includes stain and finish.
We don’t up our price when we get to your house ( in rare cases you could have some unusual thing we would have to charge for but after doing houses in virtually every neighborhood in the area it is rare.)
I did’t talk about windows but half of our work is replacing your old windows with dual pane windows in vinyl, fiberglass, or wood with fiberglass exterior. We are a leader in the area for not only doors by also retro fit windows.
How do you get started?
Note: Size and a cell phone picture is very helpful.
We will come out later for accurate measuring before we order the materials.
The hardest part is picking out a door; there are so many to choose from. When you come into our showroom please have the size of you door or doors and of course any windows you want done.
Measuring doors: You just measure the door from side to side and from top to bottom. A typical single front door is 36”; yours may be 35” and a fraction maybe 35 & about 3/4” (35-3/4”) but it starts out as 36 and we plane an bevel the edges.
Some are 42” wide. The height varies because they start at 80” tall and the bottom is cut to clear the floor. Well, actually to clear the threshold but the threshold height varies with different floors. If your door is 78-1/2 tall that is a 80” door. The next most common height, especially in the newer homes is eight foot tall.
Double doors in this area are often 30” each; A pair is 60” (5’). Six foot wide is the second most popular for Double entry doors.
Interior doors vary and are usually in two inch increments.
Common sizes are 24” for entry closets, 24 or 26” for bath rooms, 28” for laundry room to outside ( to fit a washer through).
If it goes to the garage from the house it is a fire door and could be 28” if attached to the laundry room or 30” if it is not.
The garage to the out side ( we call it a garage out) is usually 30” and is the first door to wear out unless it is metal or fiberglass.
Wardrobe doors you measure the overall width and note how many doors, Wardrobe doors height: you measure from the floor to the drywall or jamb if it has one.
Window measuring: Windows are custom ordered to the fraction of an inch but are price to the next largest 6” increment. You can be an inch off an still get an accurate price.
The way to measure windows is similar to how you would measure for mini blinds but again just rough measure are all you need for a quote. The standard is to measure width first then height.
Most windows slide sideways (horizontal slide), some larger ones have two vent panels. Some slide up (vertical slide). Some don’t open at all (picture windows) and there are other configurations that you may want to draw a sketch of or take a cell pic.
Feel free to call us with any questions.
We hope to see you in our Showroom and will do are best to answer questions and you can see our life size displays.
Our Rancho Cucamonga store is our big showroom and our main location. I have a office in the Claremont Village with displays but it’s only open when I’m there and I wish I could be there more but I am often out in the field.
The Rancho store is open 9 to 5 Monday thru Friday and Saturday from 10:30am to 2pm. We do close for major holidays.
D.P. Door Company, Inc
8633 Baseline Road
Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730
(909) 989-1477 |
