Door buying experience
Posted: March 13th, 2021, 11:43 pm
Writing down my door hunting experience for benifit of everyone who is looking at doors in 2021.
So finally the Construction came to stage where I have to focus on doors and door frames. Required one main door ,+ 8 -9 interior doors (rooms, towards parking, utility, terrace etc) and also bathroom doors.
I had forgone idea of purchasing teak logs and let them season last year as decided on UPVC for windows and partitions and more eco-friendly choices for interior doors rather then cutting Lots of trees. Eco-friendly construction was always mybtop priority and I selected slag sand , GGBS RMC and PPC cement wherever possible to keep carbon foot print low.
And I thought for one main door can always go and buy ready-made door.
1. Went to Aryabhangi on residency road , lots of good carvings on teak and a standard size carved door will be approximately in range of 1.2 Lakhs and they will take 60 days to deliver. However our whole architecture style is modern and classic carved doors don't fit in the concept.
Plain designs were approx 85K+ and frame extra, clientele of AryaBhangi is mostly people looking for classic carved doors.
keep budget of 1.5 - 2 lakh for main door + frame if you are into Aryabhangi style of main doors. They use mostly Kerala teak which I trust is one of most expensive varieties though there were few of Ghana teak as well
Doors are not available off the shelf and lead time to fulfill order is 45 to 60 days. If you want very fine looking traditional carved doors befitting a Royal palace or temple this is the place.
2. Walked to Mahalsa doors some 400m away on St. Marks Road as I had checked their website , they are also mostly in to carved teak doors. They take custom jobs and people provide wood to them ( buying logs an year in advance and seasoning them) after getting seasoned wood from customer they will need 4 months to make door. Workmanship of displayed pieces was excellent. Displayed pieces could be purchased off the shelf but they were heavily carved huge doors ( 8x5 , 8x4, 7x3.5 etc)
Prices were similar to Aryabhangi.
Was disappointed at lead times ,
I had seen plain looking ready-made doors at cheaper prices elsewhere so started exploring.
Finally went to a factory in Horimavu ( Interior doors) they are supplier on IndiaMart and buyers are mostly retail shopkeepers who sell readymade doors. Teak door ( ghana teak with joinery starts at 10500 approx) in my eyes it doesn't look bad at all.. Teaks doors without joinery or may be less joints 20-26 K and good quality doors with expensive teak 38 K onwards.
The plain designs without carvings were exactly same as what i saw as plain designs in big two earlier. They also do some carvings but I didn't check much as my interest was in plain modern design.
They can provide either unpolished or fully polished as per choice. Can take up custom job and lead time is 5 days.
Also saw laminated flush doors for interiors for 4.5 k approx both side lamination. Neem wood ply as they claim which doesn't attract pests.
Thing is I am living in flat and have painted flush doors of no-name ply fitted by builder and nothing happened to them in last 17 years of rough use so quite convinced that laminated should be slightly better.
Aprt from these they also supply WPC doors and frames for bathrooms these doors also have grooves and pressed designs to make them look like panel doors. Membrane doors were also there which are quite cheap but Membrane door has lesser life than WPC.
So I think by choosing a cheaper ready-made teak main door in remaining money I can get rest of the doors + frames for house.
Perhaps a better utilization of money saved from expensive wood could be investing in solar panels or solar + heat pump water heater. Just my opinion.
Also i don't want to make it look like advertisement of particular manufacturers there may many more like this firm nor this is any kind of criticism for the two shops but just wanted to share that if you don't want to buy wood in advance and get a carpenter + CNC shop Or the uber expensive ones as seen on website there could be a third choice for teakwood as well.
So finally the Construction came to stage where I have to focus on doors and door frames. Required one main door ,+ 8 -9 interior doors (rooms, towards parking, utility, terrace etc) and also bathroom doors.
I had forgone idea of purchasing teak logs and let them season last year as decided on UPVC for windows and partitions and more eco-friendly choices for interior doors rather then cutting Lots of trees. Eco-friendly construction was always mybtop priority and I selected slag sand , GGBS RMC and PPC cement wherever possible to keep carbon foot print low.
And I thought for one main door can always go and buy ready-made door.
1. Went to Aryabhangi on residency road , lots of good carvings on teak and a standard size carved door will be approximately in range of 1.2 Lakhs and they will take 60 days to deliver. However our whole architecture style is modern and classic carved doors don't fit in the concept.
Plain designs were approx 85K+ and frame extra, clientele of AryaBhangi is mostly people looking for classic carved doors.
keep budget of 1.5 - 2 lakh for main door + frame if you are into Aryabhangi style of main doors. They use mostly Kerala teak which I trust is one of most expensive varieties though there were few of Ghana teak as well
Doors are not available off the shelf and lead time to fulfill order is 45 to 60 days. If you want very fine looking traditional carved doors befitting a Royal palace or temple this is the place.
2. Walked to Mahalsa doors some 400m away on St. Marks Road as I had checked their website , they are also mostly in to carved teak doors. They take custom jobs and people provide wood to them ( buying logs an year in advance and seasoning them) after getting seasoned wood from customer they will need 4 months to make door. Workmanship of displayed pieces was excellent. Displayed pieces could be purchased off the shelf but they were heavily carved huge doors ( 8x5 , 8x4, 7x3.5 etc)
Prices were similar to Aryabhangi.
Was disappointed at lead times ,
I had seen plain looking ready-made doors at cheaper prices elsewhere so started exploring.
Finally went to a factory in Horimavu ( Interior doors) they are supplier on IndiaMart and buyers are mostly retail shopkeepers who sell readymade doors. Teak door ( ghana teak with joinery starts at 10500 approx) in my eyes it doesn't look bad at all.. Teaks doors without joinery or may be less joints 20-26 K and good quality doors with expensive teak 38 K onwards.
The plain designs without carvings were exactly same as what i saw as plain designs in big two earlier. They also do some carvings but I didn't check much as my interest was in plain modern design.
They can provide either unpolished or fully polished as per choice. Can take up custom job and lead time is 5 days.
Also saw laminated flush doors for interiors for 4.5 k approx both side lamination. Neem wood ply as they claim which doesn't attract pests.
Thing is I am living in flat and have painted flush doors of no-name ply fitted by builder and nothing happened to them in last 17 years of rough use so quite convinced that laminated should be slightly better.
Aprt from these they also supply WPC doors and frames for bathrooms these doors also have grooves and pressed designs to make them look like panel doors. Membrane doors were also there which are quite cheap but Membrane door has lesser life than WPC.
So I think by choosing a cheaper ready-made teak main door in remaining money I can get rest of the doors + frames for house.
Perhaps a better utilization of money saved from expensive wood could be investing in solar panels or solar + heat pump water heater. Just my opinion.
Also i don't want to make it look like advertisement of particular manufacturers there may many more like this firm nor this is any kind of criticism for the two shops but just wanted to share that if you don't want to buy wood in advance and get a carpenter + CNC shop Or the uber expensive ones as seen on website there could be a third choice for teakwood as well.