When someone asks for a front door, our first question is always the same: what is on each side of it? A door between a heated corridor and a heated living room is not the same product as a door between a garden and a living room. One is about sound and security, the other about rain, sun and heat loss. Three or four different builds hide behind one phrase, and choosing the wrong one costs comfort more than money.

Apartment entrance doors

An apartment door sits in a sheltered position with no rain, no direct sun and limited temperature difference. Three expectations dominate. Resistance to forced entry, through multi-point locking, cylinder protection and fixed security pins on the hinge side. Sound insulation, where stairwell conversation and footsteps are cut by the gasket line around the leaf. And smell transfer, where an automatic drop seal at the bottom keeps cooking and smoke out. Our standard apartment size gives a clear frame opening of 90×200 cm and, with a 10 cm casing, 108×210 cm at the architrave edge.

Villa and garden-level doors

Here the equation changes. The door opens directly to outside air, so rain, sun, wind and freeze-thaw cycles work on the surface. Finish selection moves away from membrane and lacquered MDF toward composite panels and high-pressure laminate. Polyurethane cores come forward, because heat loss is a real bill. Glazing must be tempered, and sealed double units are preferred outdoors. Our standard is 145×215 cm clear with 165×223 cm at the architrave and 20-24 cm adjustable frame depth for thick wall sections. Across our glazed villa doors the glass area is set by facade orientation.

One question decides the finish

Does the door take rain or direct sun? If not, the pattern range is wide: embossed membrane faces, carved panels, laser detail, flat lacquered surfaces. If it does, the range narrows to durable panel families. A third case sits between them, where a canopy shelters the door but wind-driven rain still reaches it; there the practical answer is a durable panel outside with lacquered MDF or melamine inside.

Sound, heat and smell

  • Sound: two rows of EPDM gasket make a clear difference over one, and rock wool core raises absorption.
  • Heat: polyurethane core performs best thermally; without a threshold, an automatic drop seal is essential.
  • Smell: most leakage is at the bottom gap, which the drop seal closes.
  • Condensation: a cold exterior door can sweat on its inner face; better thermal separation reduces it.

Locking and daily use

Lock choice is partly about habit. Multi-point locking is the most secure arrangement but needs a deliberate lift-and-turn, and a user leaving in a hurry skips it, leaving only the night latch engaged. Systems that engage several points automatically on closing suit real households better. If you want a smart lock, fingerprint reader or camera viewer, the cable route is machined into the leaf during production; drilling afterwards breaks the core. Wide-angle viewers show nearly the whole area in front of the door.

Hand, handle height and colour

Check that the open leaf does not block the hallway, cover a light switch or strike a neighbour's door. That decision belongs with the measurement, not with the installer. Handle height sits around 100-110 cm from the floor, toward the lower end with lever handles where wheelchair access matters. The two faces look into two different spaces, so there are two colour decisions: the outer face matching the corridor or facade, the inner face matching the room doors. Light interiors brighten narrow hallways, which is where most demand for our white steel doors comes from.

Measuring and quoting

State which figure you are quoting: structural opening, clear frame opening or architrave edge are three different numbers. Take width at three heights and height at both jambs, using the smaller values in centimetres, and allow for floor build-up if the finish is not laid. Non-standard openings shift leaf width, hinge quantity and lock position at once, which means made-to-measure production. Send your measurements, the door hand and the exposure, and we will quote accordingly; doors are crated and dispatched from Istanbul by truck or sea container.