At Doorsan we specialise in wooden doors. We supply quality engineered, veneered doors, a few are made from solid pieces of timber, but engineered are stronger. We believe that wood is best! It is so easy to work with, can be altered, routed, shaped, fixed together and glazed to make a vast variety of styles.
However there are other materials out there that are used for doors and I thought I'd take a look at some of the more unusual materials people are using to make doors.
[caption id="attachment_2112" align="alignright" width="199"] Ice Hotel Sunrise Image © Tom Godber[/caption]
There are the obvious ones for some exterior doors like uPVC and aluminium along with the less obvious, but still common, steel and fibreglass. Of course there are also doors made entirely from glass. There are also mirror doors which can usually be found on wardrobes and then there's the classic stained glass usually associated with Churches or Traditional period properties.
In Japan they use translucent paper for doors! Quite what good it does, I don't really know since it won't keep out sound or unwanted intruders. Similarly on an oriental theme I've also seen doors made of bamboo. These can be much more substantial than you might think. The bamboo door curtains are something different entirely.
The truly sustainable amongst you might consider a straw door! Going back a few thousand years, rocks were used to block doors to caves and more recently in the 7th and 8th century stone doors made from solid slabs like huge paving flags were used in locations such as the desert castles in Jordan.
Another unexpected material for a door and one which probably won't work in the UK is water! Ok to be more precise, ICE! There are hotels in Finland (and probably other cold places) that are almost entirely made of ice including the floors, walls, beds and doors!
On reflection though, I have to say that "wood is best!" and you can buy the best timber doors from Doorsan.