Tips for Choosing Exterior French Doors

French doors for your exterior?  Yes!  Although most people think of using French doors indoors, there are a number of applications where French doors work well as exterior doors.  They’re especially popular on historic or period homes such as Victorians.  In fact, this timeless style door dates back to the 1600s.

• French doors used as entry doors provide a larger door opening than a single door would.  This time of year, think of how easy it would be to bring that fresh Christmas tree in through the front entry rather than having to drag it around to the back to get it in through your patio door! 
• French doors work well as patio doors for homes that are modern but also for those that are more traditional style. The typical sliding glass patio door is too modern to fit well with older homes. 

Considerations When Buying Exterior French Doors

Just like choosing any other exterior door, a major thing to settle on is the type of door material you want.  There are multiple options we install, the main ones being wood, steel, and fiberglass.  Now, unless the doors are protected by exterior storm doors, we don’t suggest real wood doors for any exterior application; Minneapolis weather is too hard on wood.  Both fiberglass and steel are good options – they’re durable, require very little in the way of maintenance, and they have options to have embossed wood grain so they replicate wood doors.  We install:

• Fiberglass French doors from ProVia and Marvin
• Steel French doors from ProVia  (the doors shown above are from ProVia’s Legacy collection of steel doors)
• For those who desire a wood door, we suggest the wood interior/clad exterior French doors from Weather Shield.

Once you’ve settled on the door frame material and chosen a manufacturer, your next consideration is which way do you want those doors to open?  Swinging in? Swinging out? Each door a different direction?  Or perhaps you want one door to be inoperable most of the time but still with the ability to open it up when needed.

How do you select which way a French door should swing?  We’ll cover that in our next post.  In the meantime, we’d love to help you explore what’s available in energy-efficient French doors.  We are authorized installers for Marvin, ProVia, and Weather Shield.  Contact us today for a free, no obligation consultation. 

 

Window Outfitters is a premier Window Replacement, doors, siding contractor and installer. As Contractor in the St Paul, Minneapolis, (Twin Cities) Minnesota (MN) metro, we proudly serve, but are not limited to, the following areas: Minneapolis Energy Efficient Vinyl Windows, Replacement Window Contractors Minnesota, Burnsville, Apple Valley, Lakeville, Savage, Bloomington, Edina, Richfield, Eagan, St Paul, Hastings, Minnetonka, Plymouth, Maple Grove, Eden Prairie, Farmington MN, Chaska, Shakopee, Chanhassen, Victoria, Mendota Heights Anderson Windows Minneapolis, Marvin Windows Minneapolis.