In this video i'm going to take you through our new front door....
...literally! Our old front door dates back to when the house was built in 2001. Using
the term 'dates back' does make it sound like an archaeological artefact. The door was getting on a
bit and cosmetically it needed to paint in general spruce up however structurally the door was okay.
But why did we decide to change it rather than simply painting it? In December 2020 and again
in March 2021 I used my thermal imaging camera to view the door from the inside and from the
outside of the house. And it was an enlightening outcome. These are the shots I took in March 2021.
This is the shot looking from the outside and here's the thermal imaging of that same view.
Now it has to be said I'm no thermal imaging expert.
If you spot anything I've missed or got wrong then please do jump into the comments down below.
The house will be around 20ºC on the inside with the heating on. Outside temperature was around 7ºC
when this photo was taken. Using the thermal imaging camera to find missing insulation and
energy losses the difference in temperature between the inside of the building and the
outside of the building should be preferably about 10ºC. The brighter the colour the more heat,
the darker the colour the less heat. So for example the doorbell,
it's on the right-hand side of the door frame about halfway up, it has an illuminated bulb
which is always on. So it gets hot and this is the hottest area of this photo at 13.2ºC. If you look
at the bottom of the door you can see where we're losing heat. It's leaking out under the bottom of
the door represented in yellow and with some green edges. Yellow means more heat, whereas green is
slightly cooler or less heat. The wooden panels either side of the door are losing heat too.
They show up as a green yellow colour note it has a yellow band around the green there is
greater heat loss in the yellow area due to the scalloping moulding design of the center panel.
This is the thinnest part of that panel. The glass is obviously transparent so it can lead to
false outcomes so ignore the big red area in the center of the glass because that's the inside of
the house. I suspect the 2 glass panels are losing heat anyway. They are double glazed but only just
they have a very thin air gap of about 5mm between the 2 panels. Also looking around the edge of the
door where it meets the frame at the top and the side you can see yellow and green again
signifying heat loss. Same with the letterbox positioned in the middle of the door. The only
good bits are the brick walls and the bottom panel of the door which I suspect has an insulated core.
This is from the inside looking back at the door and here again is the thermal image of that same
view this is the same day same time of day as the images that we've just looked at from the outside,
which means the internal external temperatures are the same. Here we are looking at draughts
coming into the house notice the blue areas indicating draughts coming in from the outside.
Look at the bottom of the door and on the right hand side near the floor a very cold spot there
these images visually demonstrate that we needed to improve the thermal efficiency of
our front door. Once our attention was drawn to the inefficiency of the door on windy cold days
we noticed draughts coming in under the door, through the letterbox and around the door seals.
The wooden side panels and side windows with a thinner double glazing were significantly
colder to the touch than the main door and its glass. Many people have decided to sort of build
a porch on the front of their house to improve the thermal efficiency and reduce draughts which is a
very sensible option. However, we didn't want to do that as it would spoil the front aspect
to the house. I didn't want to lose the current look of the building line of the front of the
house which meant a porch was a non-starter. As I'd already been researching EnerPhit retrofits
to passive house standards to make our house more thermally efficient and if you've not
seen that video i'll put a link to it up here, and also a link in the description down below.
It was a bit of an easy leap to start looking at entrance doors that met passive house standard.
So I started researching thermally efficient doors. After looking at many many websites and
manufacturers I found RK Door Systems. As the BBC says 'other door manufacturers are available'.
This isn't a paid advert, I'm not getting any incentive purely my findings as a paying
customer for the product. What I liked about these doors is the wide choice of design and features.
You can create a one-off bespoke door that you design yourself adding and removing items,
or fittings, features, options. It truly is a custom door that no one else will have.
They use German made components and aluminium profiles. Their doors are PASS 24 certified as
well as Secure by Design. PASS 24: 2016 is a British Standard Institute method
for assessing the security performance of external and external doors and window types.
Apparently one of their customers was ram raided by a 4x4 and the door held up. The door,
the laminated glass, toughened glass, held up basically none of it gave way.
Secure by Design is an initiative developed and owned by the Association of Chief Police officers.
The purpose of Secure by Design is to incorporate crime prevention
into the design of doors and window products. The door we chose has a U
rating of 0.72 watts per meter squared kelvin. Which is a bit of a mouthful.
Typically doors are a lot higher than that, so it is very impressive in terms of its thermal
efficiency. The door has flush interior and exterior which means there are no visible hinges.
It's triple glazed and the door and frame is 75mm thick. There's also an online door designer for RK
doors. You can configure your door and choose what options you want and what it will actually look
like, you can actually upload a photo of your own house and place your chosen door in the location
to give you an idea of what it will look like; both from the outside and from the inside.
And you can also get a quote online. We opted for a site survey and for RK to install the door.
We then placed the order and there was an 8 week wait for the door
to be made. Door was delivered 2 days before the installation team were due to arrive.
They unpacked the door and checked it over with me to make sure everything was okay.
The installation day arrived and obviously it was it started raining,
despite it being dry and sunny for the days beforehand and the days afterwards. But I
guess that's just how it seems to work! The 2 guys from the installation team,
Seth and Clive basically over the course of the day they remove the old door, making very
little damage to the plaster work surrounding the door on the inside. The new door was installed.
It's a really heavy aluminium frame in one piece and once it was installed it was then bolted in
place. The glazing was installed and trimmed to complete the look. And it was then sealed
and they did a great job of installing the door and created very little mess cleared up
after themselves. And talked us through what they were doing while they were doing it.
They were very neat and tidy even down to sort of finishing off the bottom edge of the door with
a wooden oak trim to match our floor. Once the team had left we set about filling in the plaster
around the inside of the door where there'd been some damage. This was then painted and
caulking applied to finish off the look. And we're basically really pleased with the door.
Not only does it look good but now it's like you can shut it and you shut out all the noise from
outside. Not that it's particularly noisy, but if it's like windy or stuff like that. So both
the triple glazing and the door thickness means that the hallway is much quieter. It's something
we're not really thought about really. About the noise. As I say not that it's noisy where we live,
it is a quiet cul-de-sac. But even so when the neighbours kids are playing in the street,
all those delivery vehicles coming and going, like really windy and you just basically can't hear
anything. Now closing the door is like closing a bank vault, it's a very satisfying experience.
Kinaesthetically and orally. We also opted not to have a letterbox
as this makes a big hole in a thermally insulated door. They actually do matching letter boxes so
you can choose a door design if you want to and have your letterbox matching your door.
However we've already had an old cast iron red letter box that we purchased from a reclaim yard
20 odd years ago. So now that is our letterbox and the postman loves it! We're looking forward to the
winter bizarrely! For those cold windy nights as we know the hall will be warm and toasty now.
So that basically completes another piece of our jigsaw puzzle to improve the thermal efficiency of
our home. So if you've got any questions please drop them down in the comments below and i'll
pick them up. Thanks for watching and I'll see you on our next video. All right take care bye.