A customer called last year wanting a replacement bottom gasket. The shop that sold him the door had closed, nobody knew who had made it, and the gasket channel matched no standard profile on the market. A five-euro part turned into re-machining the leaf edge. That is the invisible part of choosing a supplier: it is not decided on purchase day, it is decided in year four.
Reseller or maker
Most doors on a showroom floor were pressed in someone else's workshop and badged. Ask where the leaf press, frame brake, coating line and installation crew actually sit. The answer shows itself the moment you request a change. A manufacturer answers "can the lock move up 5 cm" the same day; an intermediary says they will ask.
Spare-part continuity
A door lasts fifteen to twenty years; its accessories do not. Over that time you will replace gaskets, cylinders and escutcheons, handles, viewers, drop-seal rubbers and hinge bearings. Ask how long each stays available. A maker who works with standard gasket profiles can supply parts far longer than one using a proprietary section.
Size flexibility
Stock sellers ask you to adapt the opening to the door. Manufacturers do the reverse. Our standard sizes are 90×200 cm clear frame opening for apartment doors (108×210 cm at the architrave edge), 145×215 cm clear for lobby and villa doors (165×223 cm at the architrave), and 90×200 cm clear for fire doors (104×208 cm at the architrave). Anything outside those changes leaf width, hinge count and lock position together, which means a made-to-measure quotation. On building entrance doors in particular, two projects almost never share an opening size.
A quotation you can read
A single line reading "steel door" tells you nothing. You should see sheet gauge for leaf and frame, leaf thickness, core material, finish family and code, lock type and number of locking points, hinge count, gasket rows, threshold or drop seal, which reference the stated dimensions use, whether freight and installation are included, and the lead time. Two quotations are only comparable once those lines exist.
Samples and real references
Catalogue photographs do not convey surface texture. Ask for finish samples you can turn in the light. Better still, look at a door the maker installed two years ago: check the membrane edges at the corners, how the gasket has compressed, the sound of the hinge. Ask for an address rather than an adjective.
Lead time, packing and freight
Production time and delivery time are different numbers. Laser-cut patterns and special colours wait for line slots. For export, settle three things in writing: days from order confirmation, who handles freight, and how the doors reach the building. A double-leaf lobby set or a 215 cm villa leaf will not fit a passenger lift. Leaves and frames ship separately packed with corner protection; glazed units such as glazed villa doors need their own glass crating. Shipments leave our Istanbul yard by truck for European and Balkan destinations, or in containers further afield, and we will confirm how many doors fit a given container before you order.
