Replacement door time

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gti16vman
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Replacement door time

#1 Post by gti16vman »

Hi all, been a few years since I have been around. Had all the windows in the house replaced with Sunrise Vanguard just about 4 years ago and still love them. Now we are looking to do doors and are having some sticker shock. We have a 72x80 french style double front door, and 5 32x80's, a 1/2 lite door from laundry room outside and then 4 full lite doors (2 with privacy glass) from the back of the house out to the patio. We have half a quote from one company and a full quote from another. The full quote is using ProVia Signet front, Vantage 1/2 lite and Signet for the 4 full lite. The price was way more than I expected and that is after they told me they were giving me a 20% discount. I assume having them drop down to a lower tier of ProVia should lower the cost.

The second quote, for the 5 doors without entry door, is 38% of the first quote when comparing just the same door replacements. I found the second company highly recommended on nextdoor, but I am not sure yet what brand they use. I know that plays a large role in cost, but this seems a little crazy. The second company due to covid had me just text them pics of inside and outside of each door. Their quote was emailed over, which is why I do not yet know what brand they are quoting.

Not sure I have a ton of questions yet, need to get another quote or two. Are there other brands I should be looking into? Any of the pros here in the DFW, TX area now? The house is ~30 years old and we have wood doors today, which are starting to look a little rough.

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Windows on Washington
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Re: Replacement door time

#2 Post by Windows on Washington »

38% of the other quote? Not sure how that is even possible.

gti16vman
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Re: Replacement door time

#3 Post by gti16vman »

This is part of where my confusion comes from. One quote for 5 doors is ~$16k, the other is ~$6k. Both are fiberglass doors, but again, not sure what brand of door the second is using and the first appears to be top of the line ProVia. The company with the higher bid is also going to bid out Waudena brand as well.

One note is that the 4 full lite doors on the back patio all have at least 4ft of overhang from the roof, so none sees any direct rain/sun. I kind of think we don't need the top of the line for those doors, as honestly we only ever open 1 of the 4 regularly. One is the pool bathroom, which is used a couple months per year, one is the normal door we use, one I am not sure we have ever opened in 6 years and the other is from our master bedroom and I think I have opened it once or twice. I toyed with the idea of replacing two of them with windows since we never use them as doors, but I think that will either look strange for a full length window or be too costly trying to match brick to close up the bottom. Now the one in the laundry with 1/2 lite gets direct sunlight/rain, so that needs to be a good one.

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Windows on Washington
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Re: Replacement door time

#4 Post by Windows on Washington »

Pretty sure the 6K guy is way off. For 5 exterior door with glass, its functionally impossible.

gti16vman
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Re: Replacement door time

#5 Post by gti16vman »

Is that just because of the cost of a door? I know Lowe's has a Jeld Wen steel door with window for $300 and seconds and surplus has a fiberglass one for $350. Lowe's had a sign showing $284 for install. Now I know this is as cheap as you can get, but that would be ~$600-650 per door installed. Now this does not include painting or hardware, so that would be an added cost, but I know that would be as cheap as I could probably do it. This made me think that the lower quote was not totally unreasonable.

The lower quote was $679 per door and ~$550 per door for materials and install. So they are either buying the seconds and surplus doors and marking them up or it is in fact a better quality door than I would get there. As I said, I found the company via some good reviews on nextdoor. They also have a 4.5 star rating on google with 68 reviews. I will report back when I find out what doors they actually use and need to confirm if that includes painting/staining as well.

The bigger quote was all in with hardware and everything, so I know it isn't totally fair to compare the two. But just looking at a single door, Lowe's is $300, quote 1 is $679, and quote 2 is $3500. When shopping for windows, the range from cheapest to most expensive was 2-2.5x times the price, whereas this is over 10X. Maybe that is normal, but it shocked us. Also, seems like for 10X the price it better be a pretty incredible door.

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Windows on Washington
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Re: Replacement door time

#6 Post by Windows on Washington »

Provia is not what you find in the big box stores. Quite a big difference between those products and there is NO situation in which you are pricing up 5 Provia full lite doors for 6K...on materials alone.

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Re: Replacement door time

#7 Post by gti16vman »

I definitely did not expect big box store doors to compare to the top of the line, just surprised at the price difference. The price difference between the quote on my Sunrise windows and window world was less than 2.5X more.

Yeah, I don't know what the 6k quote product is, but I am certain it is not Provia. I have an inquiry in with them, but have not heard back. They are in a tough spot at the moment as the owner and his wife both have cv19, so we have done everything via phone/email so far, hence why I didn't get any literature.

I got the Waudena quote in at ~$17k. That is everything the same as the Provia one from that same vendor. I have another vendor coming next week (the company that did my windows).

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Windows on Washington
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Re: Replacement door time

#8 Post by Windows on Washington »

So far you have two at one range and one outlier. If you get a 3rd and it tends towards the other two, you can probably the outlier out.

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Re: Replacement door time

#9 Post by HomeSealed »

Good advice from WoW. The $15, 16, 17k quotes are in the normal range for 5 entry doors installed. As he alluded to, $6k is less than that raw material cost at wholesale. I know that $6k quote sounds awfully nice, but the chances of you being happy with that purchase on day one let alone a few years down the road are slim to none.... In this case, the other quotes are "normal", that low one is definitively the outlier.

gti16vman
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Re: Replacement door time

#10 Post by gti16vman »

Ok, had my window installer come out for a quote and he showed me the differences with the ProVia. Between that and going to seconds and surplus, I can see where the price difference comes in. With that being said, I also heard back from the first guy who quoted me on front door price so I can better compare apples to apples.

Quote 1) Company A - $9000-9500 for 6 doors installed, all fiberglass, front french door is textured, the rest are smooth. Company that makes the doors is www.plastproinc.com. The one thing I don't know as he just got back to me is if this includes hardware or not. In either case, this is quite a lot cheaper than the other brands.

Quote 2) Company B - $16.3k for 6 doors installed, all fiberglass, front french door is textured, the rest are smooth. This includes everything including hardware, paint/stain, etc. Doors are made by www.waudena.com

Quote 3) Company B - $24.5k for 6 doors installed, all fiberglass, front french door is textured (Signet), the rest are smooth. This includes everything including hardware, paint/stain, etc. These are ProVia doors.

Quote 4) Company C - ~$20k (don't have exact number, but we played around with the program for a little bit and he showed me the quoted prices and then told me what they charge for a door install) for 6 doors installed, front french door is textured, the rest are smooth steel. This includes everything including hardware, paint/stain, etc. These are ProVia doors.

My window guy said he would go steel for the back doors and I can see that the steel used by ProVia is a much higher grade than Lowe's steel doors, so I am cool with that, plus all things considered the steel and fiberglass doors were about the same cost (within $100/door of each other).

The one thing is my wife had picked out the craftsman style 1/4 lite door style and now she is starting to think that she wants iron doors for the front now. We may end up using one of these for just the other 5 doors now.

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Re: Replacement door time

#11 Post by HomeSealed »

You will probably be in good shape if you pick any of these options except number 1. Good doors, price range all in the ballpark for that scope of work.

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