Composite front doors

The most common mistake is fitting a contemporary three light door to a 1930s semi with bay windows, or a six panel traditional door to a flat fronted new build. A door that argues with the elevation looks wrong forever, however good the door is.

As a rough guide: panelled designs suit anything built before about 1960, cottage designs with small panes suit stone and render, and long vertical glazing suits post 2000 properties and anything with grey aluminium windows. If your windows have Georgian bars, the door should have a nod to them.

Glass is the trade off nobody talks about until after they have fitted the door. A full height light will transform a dark hallway, and it will also mean anyone standing at your door can see the shape of whoever is coming to answer it.

Obscure and sandblasted glass solves most of it, and both are available on every aperture. If your door faces directly onto a pavement, take the obscure. If it is set back behind a porch or a gate, clear glass is fine and you will get considerably more light.

A composite leaf is genuinely difficult to breach, and almost nobody tries. The realistic attack is cylinder snapping, which takes seconds with the right tool and gets past an otherwise excellent door. It is also entirely preventable.

Specify a TS007 3 star anti-snap cylinder such as an Ultion. It is the cheapest meaningful upgrade on the whole order, and it is the one we would insist on if you were our own family.