Replacing upvc front door with a wooden one

[SunshineOutdoors]

Any reason why I shouldn't? Live in an oldish (somewhere between 1910 and 1930s terraced house, it has a (in my opinion) horrible white upvc front door. No porch so I can see it in the hallway all the time. I don't really like the look of composite ones but want a lovely painted wooden front door with wooden frame and pane of glass above. Think this could possibly help with condensation in the hallway too?

Any reasons why this would be a bad idea?

I'd have to have a pretty ugly PVC door to consider it. We do have a wooden front door (with stain glass window) which DH dreams of replacing with PVC; in last yrs he's had to do so much maintenance on it (shaving edges because of constantly swelling). It's slowly splitting itself apart & has spells of being impossible to open.

it is an excellent idea.

Is the door exposed to the weather? If so, paint will last better than stain. The inside and the outside can have different finishes if you wish.

Modern wooden frames usually come with draughtstrip that fits in a groove.

Is there room for a letterbox beside the door, rather than in the door?

We removed our UPVC for a wooden door in Victorian terraced last summer. It is painted. Looks lovely and no other problems. It's not colder in winter and we've had no swelling problems. Lovely. Do it!

Excellent, I shall start proceedings (pathetically, maybe disproportionately excited at thought of new front door)!

pigletjohn I have no room for letterbox at side I don't think. Why would this be better?

I have a lovely painted wooden door. It's the only one left in our street.

because it is possible, using a simple home-made tool, to reach through a letterbox and turn a latch, knob, handle or key (if left in the keyhole), or to pull back a bolt.

Old yale-style (non-BS) nightlatches are especially easy.

so the further a letterslot is from the locks, the better. Preferably in a paned at the hinge side.

A letter cage is better than nothing.

Ok, thanks. Is it worth having the letter box closer to the floor rather than at handle-ish height? Or will my postie hate me forever?

Linerunner in my area of lovely terraces there's a lot of double glazed windows and upvc doors. Can't help but think in a few years we'll all be putting wooden front doors and sash windows in again, as we realise sealing up all the gaps isn't that helpful.

I bet/hope your neighbours will follow your lead soon enough

I'm lucky that my OH is a joiner - he's done me some new wooden windows as well. These are stained and look so much better than the white plastic stuff that everyone else seems to have.

Ah, we've got double glazing (already installed before we moved in) it's white on the inside but wood effect look on the outside. Not very convincing but imo marginally better than the white frames.

Jealous of your wooden windows

Go for it, we installed a timber front door a few years ago and it has totally transformed the look of our house (for the better!). Ideally the outside does need staining once a year but apart from that we have had no problems and it is very strong and secure. We have had tons of compliments about it and it was only from b&q.