Cladding or a complete set: the support decides
Armoured cladding keeps your door and strengthens it: folded steel over the leaf, angles protecting the frame, a multipoint lock, anti-lift studs. A complete armoured set is designed and tested as one piece and fitted in place of what is there. Its resistance does not depend on the quality of the original surround, and that is the whole difference between the two.
In the old core, stone masonry gives an anchorage few recent buildings match, provided it is worked by someone who knows the material. The doors of the terraced houses there, though, are often out of size: taller, narrower, or of an unusual thickness. A catalogue set stops at standard dimensions. Made to measure then becomes the only workable route.
In the Pérollier and Charrière Blanche estates the question changes shape. The metal surround and the concrete wall hold well, but an insulated lining behind the plasterboard can swallow the useful length of the fixings. What the armouring is really worth is decided by how those fixings hold, not by the thickness of the steel.
The questions to settle before ordering
Outward appearance is one. Altering the face of a door visible from the public highway can require planning consent, and the commune’s planning department will say what applies at your address. In a block, the building rules often govern the colour and the handle on the landing side, even though the door itself is yours.
The route in is another, and it is easily forgotten. An armoured set arrives in one piece, heavy and bulky. A sloping gravel drive at Les Sources, a winding staircase in a townhouse, a narrow lift in an estate block: that route is checked before ordering, not on fitting day.
Then there is coherence. On a walled property the front door is rarely the weakest point: a sliding glazed door onto the garden, a service door at the far end of the elevation or an attached garage will usually give way sooner. Reinforcing the door alone moves the problem rather than solving it, so we walk round every opening before pricing the front door on its own.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our door reinforcement page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Écully.