Victorian front door - repair or replace

[minkymankymoo]

Hello,
We have an original Victorian front door on a Victorian house and trying to decide whether to replace or repair. It is warped at the top by approx 7mm, the warp starts from about 50cm down from the top of the door and gets gradually worse up to the top of the door. The door is sadly glazed with horrible floral glass, I have been quoted £450 to replace the panels. I wanted to try and keep the door as it's original but had someone look at it this week who said if it was him he would replace it with a new door (obviously we would keep with a similar style).
We are about to knock down an ugly wooden porch so it will then become the main front door, not having been for quite a long time - so he said the warp is likely to get worse.
We also intend to replace the locks and door furniture if keeping the original door.
Can anyone help shed light on this dilemma?
Thank you for reading this dull post! :) :) :)

I replaced the stained glass in my original Victorian door. It is a similar style to yours. The top 3 panels didn’t need replacing as they were fine. The two large panels were cheap reed glass.

I found a chap who drew up some drawings and sent them to me with lots of coloured glass samples. A lot of them were aged looking glass to match the original.

Once I’d picked the colours, he made the panels and my dad fitted them. This was around 6 years ago and I paid less than £100. He was based in Wales and I’m in Manchester and that price included postage.

This is a long winded way of saying £450 sounds expensive and if you want the details of the guy I used I can message them to you.

I think ( and @PigletJohn may be able to confirm ) an external door has to have safety glass - I say this because we once rented a flat and the external door had not safely glass and my teenage son - not knowing his own strength - pushed on the glass rather than the wood and hand went straight through the glass. No huge damage done to son but when the chap came to fix the glass panel - he said the previous glass did not pass regulations. That said the regs often come in when you replace something rather than when they were originally installed.

Personally I would try and keep it and have it renovated. Possibly not cheap but a new door made to that specification won't be cheap either.

Further to my message OP, here’s a pic of my finished door with its replacement panels. Ignore the stone work which was mid way through being painted

That’s amazing, you’d never know it wasn’t the original glass. The guy who made those panels is seriously underselling himself.

Yes, he is definitely undeselling his skills.We are having our stained glass removed, cleaned, and triple glazed. Its costing a bit more than 450 though. There are specialist glass companies in Ipswich, Tiptree Essex, and Ongar. Friend has had her door and surrounding glass panel removed and upgraded and repaired by someone in Ipswich. Might be too far out.

It was about 6 years ago so I’m sure his prices have probably gone up in that time. But I was really pleased with the outcome and it was worth restoring rather than replacing the door.

I would keep. We have a similar door and in our first year here, the wind blew it shut and smashed the original etched glass. We had the glass replaced. Ours was 2000 pounds but that’s because we had the exact same etching done. I try to keep every original feature we have.

Happy New Year all, @LemonDropChilli, sorry to post on an old thread, but I wondered if you can send me the name/contact details of the person who restored your door please?

Hi OP...did you manage to repair your door in the end? I am in a similar position and also based in London. Would really appreciate recommendations of who did the work, if possible please? Thanks so much....

I am always envious of people with front doors like yours! repair 100%

If the warping is not too bad you could fit some bolts top and bottom to pull it in ? Had the same problem on an old door we had and it worked ok, it was in a porch so had lasted over a hundred years We had new glass made too ( it’s actually green and red glass ). It was freezing cold in the hall in winter but couldn’t bring myself to put a new door on , did my best to draught proof it.

when I took it to be dipped the bloke offered me £500 for it there and then 🙂

It’s a bit dark only one I have still

Looks lovely. Where did you get the glass done?

It was years ago ….. a small local glass place made them.