FAQS

Our Dowelled Hardwood doors are manufactured from kiln dried timber and are jointed using fluted dowels and modern adhesives. Our Mortice & Tenon doors are manufactured from select kiln dried hardwoods, and are constructed using traditional Mortice & Tenon joints and modern adhesives. This ensures that the doors are constructed to the very highest standard. The panels are set in waterproof mastic ensuring that the highest level of weatherproofing is achieved.

Goods supplied by Emerald Doors Ltd are guaranteed from defects in manufacture for twelve months from the date of receipt, any claims against extended warranties offered by our suppliers must be taken up with them directly, Emerald Doors Ltd will supply contact details, but will not be liable or become involved with any such claims. The Warranty supplied with your product applies to goods installed on UK Mainland only. Warranties apply to goods or product which have been treated/decorated and installed in accordance with the manufacturers and our instructions

We will process your order and send you a confirmation email with your invoice attached. We will then send your order over to our delivery partner who will then be in touch to let you know which day they deliver in your area. Delivery times vary from 7 to 14 days, for Bespoke & Custom Made orders please check with a member of the sales team before ordering. If a product is out of stock we will contact you and let you know the earliest date we can get the product to you.

All components should be checked at the time of delivery to ensure that they are in accordance with the order schedule, the delivery is complete and that the components, including any protective packaging, are not damaged. When signing for receipt of your door(s) and/or ancillary items, “unchecked” or similar annotations will not be accepted and we will accept no liability for any shortage or damage subsequently discovered. Visible damage must be detailed and noted clearly by you at the time of receipt on the Delivery/Receipt Note for any claim to be entertained.

Yes you do. Doors are not sold with handles, hinges, latches or locks (often known as door furniture or ironmongery) so don’t forget to choose these vital parts or you won’t be able to hang your door or open it

It is not advised for external timber doors to be used inside a building. External doors are manufactured using timber which has a higher moisture content than that used internally. Exposing quality external doors to arid centrally heated conditions risks them becoming warped or deformed. They also tend to be thicker than internal doors so may not fit a standard internal door frame

The finish of a door refers to the door’s surface and there are three types that you can consider Pre-finished, unfinished and primed.

The finish of a door refers to the door’s surface and there are three types that you can consider Pre-finished, unfinished and primed.

-> A pre-finished door will be ready to fit complete with either a varnish or paint finish. If you are considering a wooden door there really is a wealth of options available to you, due to the variety of veneers. Oak, Walnut, Ash and Beech are just a few examples or you could opt for a contemporary painted finish.

-> A primed finish is where a door has been prepared with an undercoat ready for a top coat finish of your choice. It may be that you’re keen to apply your own finish to tailor your door to your design theme.

-> Unfinished doors are prepared ready for your choice of paint or varnish. One of the rewards for your labour will be that your door can match your colour scheme. Just remember that you’ll need to budget for the purchase of your chosen paint and varnish.

Raised Mouldings are a separately carved or machined beading fixed to the face of a door. These are normally applied around the Fielded Panels and Glass Openings. Raised Mouldings give the door a great deal of character and visual depth.

Inches are the most popular way of measuring your door. Most domestic properties in U.K. use Imperial size doors (78"x27" or 78"x30" etc.). Some properties built in recent years do have Metric sized doors.

Trimming to Size – You should first check the recommendations provided with your doors or speak with a member of the sales team. Ensure that equal amounts of wood should be taken from both sides and / or the top bottom of the door, allowing for the sealing coats. Avoid fitting locks at the rail joints.

Internal Doors Pine & White Moulded
Warranty invalid if trimmed more than 3mm from any side, top & bottom.

All Internal Oak Doors
Warranty invalid if trimmed more than 6mm approx from any side and top & bottom of doors.

External Doors Oak Hardwood & Pine
On external doors we recommend that no more than 6mm be removed from any given edge. Sometimes door openings are a non standard size e.g. 31 1/2 x 78. We would advise that you purchase an 80" x 32" door and reduce the height rather than the width, as there is more width to the bottom rail than the door stiles. However removing more than 12mm from either the height or width will invalidate the guarantee. On internal oak doors, we recommend no more than 6mm (3/8 inch)

We offer a complete family of doors that are matched in design. Please refer to our products range menu and select the door you are interested in and you will be given a list of ‘related products’ which will enable you to create your family of doors.

ABSOLUTELY NOT Always wait until your door/s is delivered before arranging a joiner. We have great faith in our distributors, but doors are not an easy thing to transport and complications on delivery may occur. Especially on special order items where in rare cases, problems in supply may mean the original lead time is reinstated.

Most of our external doors and frames are sold unfinished, meaning that they need to be stained, varnished or painted after purchase. It is vital that the door or frame is sealed properly in ADVANCE of installation. If you fit the door unfinished and it is subjected to rain or direct sunlight, the door will be ruined. Refer to the instruction leaflet enclosed with your door for finishing confirmation. Try to use a branded well known finishing product. We recommend Sikkens or Sadolin. Use as many coats as the manufacturer recommends but to check that you have done finished the door correctly, spray a little water on the door and see that the water forms beads and runs off. If it doesn’t then apply another coat or two. Don’t forget to seal the areas that you can’t see such as the tops and bottoms and inside lock and letterbox cut-outs.

Many of our internal doors are sold unfinished too. These need to be sealed straight away to stop the timber drying out and splitting or taking in moisture that is in the air. It is just as important to seal the tops and bottoms when fitting doors internally. Our manufacturers don’t accept Waxing or Oiling a door as appropriate methods of sealing so we cannot provide a guarantee for any door which has been treated in this way. The only exceptions are the Period Reproduction Range which are veneered in Rustic Oak, are supplied untreated and which may be waxed or oiled without compromising the standard 12 month guarantee. More and more doors are being supplied ‘fully finished’. Remember, if you’ve bought a door that is sold under this heading, you must re-seal any trimmed edges, cavities or cut-outs straight away. The top and bottom of the door are often overlooked but must be done, even if it involves taking the door down for a short while. This is particularly important for sealing the end grain which acts like a sponge and soaks up any moisture, causing a door to swell and split. Equally, egress of moisture can cause timber to crack/split and bow.

When the doors are manufactured it has a controlled moisture content, the above mentioned treatments will not seal the moisture content into the door, therefore allowing moisture ingress or loss to occur causing the door to either swell or shrink. Only a fully paint finish (primer, undercoat, gloss) or high performance wood stain should be used.

The majority of our doors are engineered. It is quite regular practice for doors to be made from engineered components. This means that doors with a face of pine, ash, oak or walnut often use a veneer over a composite solid core. Applying doors with a real wood veneer provides greater uniformity in colour and enhances the appearance of the door. It also gives the door greater stability and less chance of twisting or splitting. In the interest of environmental concerns and improved performance, products contain engineered components including but not limited to laminated timber, MDF or particleboard

Internal Doors

All kinds of internal doors can be treated with paint or varnish types, such as the oak engineered internal doors may be treated with Sikkens or Sadolin or similar. Be sure to apply ample coats to a new door and maintain with fresh coats periodically.

External Doors - Stain or Varnish

External Doors, frames and panels may be treated with a 'spirit based micro-porous' treatment of quality exterior grade. A pre-dec coat and four top coats are recommended by manufacturers. Insure all edges are coated and sealed to prevent any moisture entering the timber. Clear varnish alone is not sufficient enough to protect the timber from weather and UV rays so a pigmented treatment should always be used.

External Doors - Paint

Exterior quality paint is recommended to be applied to your external door and door frames the recommended process is as follows:
A primer coat, 2 undercoats followed by 2 gloss coats insuring all edges are coated and sealed to prevent moisture entering the timber. It is important to NEVER! Use a 'water based' product on your new doors and door frames. We do not consider these to give adequate protection and no guarantee claim will be entertained for goods treated with such products.

Doors should be fitted square, true and plumb and fixed in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions. Three hinges should be fitted to all external doors, doors weighing more than 20 Kilograms and internal doors where large differences of temperature or humidity on opposing faces can be expected (e.g. bathrooms and airing cupboards).

Mortices for locks must not be cut through joints in the door framing as this will impair performance of the rail joint. If any part of a external door or door frame is cut or drilled, swab the newly exposed timber with a suitable preservative material and re-coat with primer or stain.

Fire resisting doors should not be altered on site. Cutting of glazing apertures on site must not be carried out without the approval of the door manufacturer and local fire officer. Ideally, the door frame should be set well back from the outer face of the wall or else be protected by a canopy. If not, the head of the frame should be provided with a protecting head drip. External doors opening outward should be particularly well protected.

Glazing panels in doors must satisfy the requirements in respect of safety glass. Bead glazing must be correctly fitted using compound or glazing tapes to both sides of the glass.

Always seek the advice of a qualified joiner / carpenter for further installation guidelines.

Flat Glass: 4mm approx

Bevelled Glass: 6mm approx

Double Glazed: 14mm approx

Tripled Glazed: 18mm approx

We can produce Internal Doors to almost any size, we specialize in producing Custom Made Fire Doors, Please send your enquiry to sales@emeralddoors.co.uk

These doors are of cassette construction therefore they are built around the glass and there are no loose beads. We do not have replacement glass. If the customer wants to re-glaze, they would need to router the mould off one side of the glazing aperture, remove the broken glass, put new glass in and acquire a new loose beading to re-glaze the door ( probably as cheap to buy a new door ).

Yes all engineered timber products should be acclimated to the average prevailing relative humidity of the locality An engineered door is made of several timber components. The core is normal a high density particle board, the veneer is normally real timber and the lipping's (edges of the doors) and inlays (normally routed decorative parts) are all solid timber The main reason for allowing a door to acclimatise is because of the solid timber lipping's and inlays.

Freshly cut timber (also known as green timber) is full of water. When a tree is first cut down the weight can be up to two and a half times the final dried weight, depending on the species and the part of the tree from which the timber comes.There are two types of water in the tree at this point. The first is free water and the second is bound water. Free water is very fast to remove but bound water is deep in the wood’s cells and has to be forced out. Once the process of removing the bound water commences the timber starts to move (contracting, cupping, bowing or twisting.) This is also true if the timber absorbs moisture after drying beyond the free water stage.Bound water is removed in most engineered products by means of a kiln.

Once the timber has undergone kiln drying it then has a moisture content of between 6% and 18%. It then heads to a factory to be made into an engineered door. When the timber arrives at the factory it will be allowed to acclimatise to the factory’s conditions for between 10 and 14 days. The conditions can vary from factory to factory. Some factories will be heated while others will simply be a covered location. The timber will generally absorb or expel moisture in the region of 15% to 18%. The solid timber is then used in production. Once the doors have completed production they will generally be packaged and shipped and stored in similar conditions to that of the factory.

When a door arrives at your property, what happens to the moisture content ? Well this is where acclimatisation is very important. In a continuously heated building timber will generally drop in moisture content from between 6% and 13%. But why does that matter? Timber moves in three ways: Longitudinal movement, tangential movement and radial movement (Fig 2). They all affect the timber in different ways but a simple calculation gives a rough guide to movement. For every 1% change in moisture, timber moves 0.25% to 0.38%. So although this is an approximate measurement, in the most extreme situation the solid timber in your door can be dropping from an 18% to 6% moisture content, resulting in an approximate movement of 3% to 4.56%.