A front door makes a significant contribution to the security, energy efficiency, sound insulation and look of your home. Therefore, buying a new front door should be carefully planned. We would like to make this easier for you, and have prepared a short checklist for you, addressing all important aspects.
1. Accurate measurements
Taking accurate measurements is important to ensure that your new front door fits perfectly into the existing door opening. Only a perfect fit achieves ideal values in terms of tightness, thermal insulation, sound insulation and burglary protection. heroal specialised partners measure your door directly on site. Use heroal’s specialised partner search to find the ideal fabricator near you, among more than 3,500 specialised partners worldwide.
2. Design
The front door is a highlight and sets the tone for the look of the house. Therefore, the design of your front door should match your individual ideas and the style of your house. Whether classic or modern: a wide range of colours, surfaces, shapes and panels are available for heroal front doors.
3. Material
The choice of the right material has an impact on the quality, durability, security and sound insulation of your front door. We differentiate between front doors made from wood, PVC and aluminium. When choosing the material, remember that your door should be robust, easy-care and durable. heroal relies on the material aluminium. Therefore, heroal front doors achieve excellent performance features and stand out for their thermal insulation, stability, durability, burglary protection and versatile design options.
4. Burglary protection
Front doors are popular targets attracting burglars – therefore, they should at least provide for burglary protection of resistance class RC 2. Then, the door will resist an opportunistic perpetrator trying to get in using basic tools for 3 minutes. The higher the resistance class, the better the burglary protection of the door. In addition to the resistance class, it is also important to pay attention to additional components when buying a front door, such as burglar-resistant fittings with multi-point locking, penetration-resistant door panels and door hinges with additional security devices on the hinged side. heroal front doors have been certified up to resistance class RC 3 by the German testing institutes ift-Rosenheim and TÜV-Nord, which means they withstand attempted break-ins up to 5 minutes.
5. Thermal insulation
Front doors as well as sidelights and fanlights play an important role when it comes to the energy efficiency of your house. A well-insulated exterior door should at least meet the requirements of the German Building Energy Act (GEG 2020) and have a minimum U-value of UD ≤ 1.8 W/m2K. The lower the U-value, the better the thermal insulation of the front door. The front door system heroal D 92 UD, for example, achieves U-values of UD > 0.7 W/m2K, meeting passive house level.
6. Sound insulation
Nowadays, the noise level outside your own house should not be underestimated. Especially in residential areas near busy streets, airports or railway lines, a good sound insulation has a significant impact on health and comfort of living. Therefore, your door should ensure sufficient noise protection for your home. The choice of the right soundproofing class depends on the noise level measured. Ask your heroal specialised partner about it – you will find a specialised partner near you in heroal’s specialised partner search. A partner will use special sound meters to measure the noise level, and determine the individually required soundproofing class.
7. Professional installation
The professional installation and adjustment of a front door ensures optimal results in terms of thermal insulation, security, sound insulation and durability. heroal specialised partners provide specialist advice, take measurements on site, deliver and install your new front door – and, if required, also dismount your old front door – , so that the optimal functioning of your new front door can be guaranteed and you can enjoy your new front door for a long time. And they are available at any time as your service partners, if your front door should require maintenance or repair.