Heritage French doors

Traditional French doors exterior: the glazing bars

Glazing bars give French doors their traditional look. Ours are 26 mm Wiener bars on both sides of the glass, in the colour of the frame: one vertical bar, a cross or six panes per leaf.

Victorian French doors

Victorian houses often have tall, narrow openings. The leaf can be up to 2,500 mm tall; a pair starts at 1,200 mm wide. If you want a fanlight above, put it in the notes with your quote request and we look at what fits.

Edwardian French doors

Edwardian houses often pair doors with glass beside them. Fixed side panels can be as narrow as 180 mm and come in the same frame as the doors, as one unit.

Heritage style French doors in uPVC

A woodgrain foil such as Winchester oak, golden oak or walnut gives the look of timber without painting. Cream comes coloured through, close to traditional paintwork.

Heritage aluminium French doors

Aluminium takes any RAL colour; fir green RAL 6009 or wine red RAL 3005 suit an older house. The MB-Ferroline is made to look like steel, with a 97 mm sightline; it insulates less well than the MB-86N (Uf 1.50 against 0.57).

The opening on an older house

Old openings are rarely square. Measure at three widths and three heights and keep the smallest figure; the doors follow that size instead of a stock size packed out with trims.

How Wiener bars are built

A Wiener bar is really a set of three: a bar on the outer face of the glass, one on the inner face and a spacer bar inside the cavity, all in line. From a few steps back it reads like glass divided by the frame, which is as close to true small panes as we go. The pane behind stays one sealed unit, so cleaning means working round the bars rather than around separate pieces of glass.

Choosing a bar pattern

There are three patterns per leaf: one vertical bar, a cross or six panes. On a tall, narrow leaf, six panes cut the glass into small upright rectangles; a cross gives four larger ones; a single vertical bar only splits the leaf in two. Look at the windows on the same wall first and follow their divisions, so the back of the house reads as one piece of work.

Cottage French doors

Cottage openings are often small, and our narrowest pair is 1,200 mm wide. Colour does much of the work on a cottage: cream coloured through, a woodgrain, or a green foil such as moss green, leaf green RAL 6002 or fir green RAL 6009. Handles come in cream and gold as well as the plainer colours.

Period colour outside, white inside

The garden side and the room side are chosen separately. A heritage green or a woodgrain can face the garden while the inside stays white, which keeps a light room behind a traditional elevation.

The threshold on an old floor

Older houses often have a step or an uneven floor where the back door goes. The threshold comes in two heights, 55 or 35 mm. Which one suits depends on the floor levels inside and out, and your installer should settle that before you order.

uPVC or aluminium on a period house

uPVC is the less expensive frame and the only one with cream in the material, the nearest thing to painted joinery that never needs repainting. Its frame shows 119 mm on the Gealan S 9000. Aluminium is slimmer, from 89 mm on the Reynaers CS 77, and takes any RAL colour; if the house once had steel doors, the MB-Ferroline at 97 mm is the one drawn to look like them.

Insulation behind the traditional look

Double glazing (HR++) has Ug 1.1 and triple glazing (HR+++) Ug 0.6. For a replacement door in England, Approved Document L judges the whole door, frame and glass together: with more than 60% glass, 1.4 W/m²K or Door Set Energy Rating band C. The new doors may not perform worse than the ones they replace.

The U-value of the complete door is in your offer. The Uf and Ug figures on our pages describe parts of the door, not that value.

Further reading

• French doors
• Black French doors
• Cheap French doors
• Narrow French doors
• Cottage style composite front doors
• Heritage uPVC windows
• Doors