French door: PVC or wood? Does PVC devalue a house?

[ParentOfOne]

We need to replace a French door, which leads from the living room to an external corridor / passage, which then leads to the back garden.

Would you spend about £2k more for a wooden door, or would you save that money and go for a PVC door?

I don't like PVC front doors, but I don't mind French doors and windows. So the question is not about aesthetics for us, but about whether / how much it would affect the perception of potential buyers. We are always told that PVC negatively affects the perception of many buyers; we don't plan on selling anytime soon, but you never know.

We never access the garden from there; we use the corridor for storage (BBQ, bicycles, etc) and we only open that door when we have to get the bikes.

The windows in the living room are made of wood, but the windows and French doors in the kitchen are PVC.

Thoughts?

I have similar internal doors & was told by our surveyor that using anything other than wood for internal doors can devalue properties in our area. But this is a fairly well healed area.

@ParentOfOne

There is no doubt that wood looks better, especially in a Victorian terrace.

However, my main issue is that I know nothing about wood, and I can't tell if a wood window will rot, will expand and get stuck, will be druaghty, etc. My experience with wood has been very mixed, from great to horrible, and I have no idea if it was just luck or if the bad experiences were due to poor quality wood, but could have been avoided with better products. UPVC is at least more consistent.

I had a look at our roads and the 4 roads around it; all Victorian terraces, but I'd say that more than half the houses have PVC for the front windows, with the rest being a combination of wood in good conditions, PVC with wood-like grain, and horribly rotten wood (which looks worse than PVC).

Our house had cheap nasty top-opening softwood frames when we moved in, in the early 80s. Several of them were rotten. (Previous owners had lived here 20 years and I assume they were the ones who replaced the original sashes - it was never discussed though, we were rank amateurs about houses having only rented before.) Do they even make softwood windows any more?

I was all for sticking up for uPVC until I saw your house was worth £1m. In all honesty though, and especially if the other windows at the back are already uPVC, I'd be going with that. I just couldn't be doing with the maintenance of wood. And you can get very nice PVC windows now, so I'd be shelling out for those. For me, it's not about the initial investment, but the consideration of ongoing upkeep.
My friend lives in a lovely Victorian terrace, and has just replaced her windows with uPVC and they look amazing. Until you get right up close, you'd never know.

Wooden windows are only as good as the maintenance that is done on them ( costly ) if they aren’t then they go downhill fast.

I spoke about this with a parent at school, who is a roofer but works with all kinds of tradesmen on renovations refurbishments etc. {lPlus he's local and knows the area.

His advice:

if you think of moving over the next 5 years, get wood as it might help with the resale value

if this is your forever home and you don't see yourself moving before 15 years, get PVC - you'd be better off getting PVC now and maybe wood in 15-20 years before reselling

@ReviewingTheSituation
Spending £1m on a house means the purchaser will know if the windows are wood or not. The gamble will always be: does it matter? It might to some buyers.

Just because someone is spending £1m on a house doesn’t mean they want the disruption of changing the windows and doors.

Having said that, I’m copying Sarah Beeny and going for Upvc sash windows on ours.

I don't like UPVC and was planning on anthracite grey aluminium for our renovation and extension. Building is 150 year old pennant stone with a white rendered extension.

Builder has suggested that we use aluminium for the new extension but matching coloured UPVC in the original building.

Timber not an option because of the upkeep.

Not sure what to do!

Personally I would always go for wood. I hate UPVC. Our house is the only one in the street without it now. Ours is also a Victorian terrace. However if I were buying and your front windows were wooden it wouldn’t put me off. I’d just change them later on.

Upvc I’d budget to replace them because they look awful. Composite well done or wood would be ok.

I've got four sets of wooden French doors. After 8 years I've painted them twice, and only most recently because I had the house on the market, only one really needed it.. I didn't need to strip them, they were all OK just one needed a bit of scraping back. You have to remove the door furniture to paint them, but I like the look far more than upvc. I don't care whether it's a street side or not, it's me who has to look at them. As your doors are internal they'll need even less maintenance. I think the look is worth the cost.

Weird the people going on about having to maintain wooden French windows.

Ours are 14 years old and we are only replacing them now having done precisely zero maintenance on them over the years. None.

We are getting new wooden ones. Six grand as they're an intricate design (we're copying what we already have as v pretty). Worth every penny IMO as I hate the look of UPVC.

@Livingintheclouds @Irishterrier then maybe I could use some guidance on what makes a good, low-maintenance wooden window. See, that's part of the problem with wood: uPVC is always low maintenance, wood isn't; whether that is because someone buys cheap wood, or the installers do a poor job I don't know, but the fact remains there is more variability with wood. You two have had to do little maintenance, but many more have radically different experiences.

In one of the houses we rented the landlord replaced a wooden sash window and it lasted 6 months before it started swelling and got stuck; he called someone to repair it, and it lasted... 9 months before the same happened again. I'd say about half the people we know have similar stories.

Where we are now, the previous owners installed an internal French door and a set of bay windows, all wood, about 3 years ago. the windows are in good shape, while the French door is all rotten and needs replacing.

I have no idea why that is - I can only acknowledge that this happens with wood but does not happen with PVC.

Maybe if I had the experience / knowledge to distinguish good vs cheap wood I would not be as averse to wood.

PvC windows last about 35 years. Decent ones.

Wood

There's softwood and hardwood. Hardwood - if you maintain it - i.e. paint it or varnish it every few years - when it starts flaking - Will last a 100 years.

softwood - if looked after will last longer than PVC - but not as long as hardwood. It also warps more easily.

Im surprised at Irish Terrier changing hers after 14 years...