Source: BUILDING PRODUCTS Magazine
Publication date: September 1, 2005
By Sharon O'Malley
They cost about $50 apiece more than wood or steel, but Holiday Builders in Melbourne, Fla., installs smooth-surface fiberglass entry doors on all of its single-family homes.
Wood doors, says corporate purchasing director Scott Clark, can warp and rot in Florida's steamy climate. And steel doors, he notes, can dent and rust.
Indeed, because smooth fiberglass entry doors resist dents, dings, rust, and warping, they have become the fastest-growing segment of the entry door market, says John Kufner, general manager of entry products for manufacturer Therma-Tru. Fiberglass entry doors, including smooth and textured products, claim 15 percent of the market, up from 10 percent at the turn of the century, shortly after smooth fiberglass was introduced. This makes smooth fiberglass doors one of our top innovations since 1990, the year BUILDING PRODUCTS was founded.
Production builders, partial to sturdy, affordable steel doors, typically turn to more expensive look-alike smooth fiberglass to keep construction costs down once they tire of replacing steel units scratched and dented during deliveries of appliances and other heavy building products to the jobsite. Clark says that's what swayed him to switch three years ago. Since then, he has used smooth fiberglass doors on 8,000 homes.
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