GB2166788A - Door - Google Patents

Abstract

A door has a main inner part (10) with a plastics or metal face, below standard size, a hardwood strip surround of a sufficient thickness to enable the door to be sized on site.

Description

SPECIFICATION Improvements in the Construction of Doors This invention relates to a door construction.

Conventional timber doors commonly found in houses and other dwellings, and often in buildings used for other purposes such as offices, require painting or other renovation relatively frequently. As material and labour costs of maintenance increase, it is becoming more and more desirable to replace such conventional timber doors with so-called maintenance-free doors. This is especially true, for example, in the case of properties owned and maintained by local authorities or the like.

Known maintenance-free doors have an aluminium or more commonly a plastics finish, for example being moulded of fibre glass around a softwood packer. Such maintenance free doors may be for exterior or interior use, may or may not be apertured for partial glazing, and may or may not be provided with letter entry slots.

Typically, such maintenance-free doors cannot be worked on site, for example to enable the cutting of recesses for handle or lock mechanisms, but, even more importantly, to enable trimming to fit an existing door frame, especially when said frame is warped or otherwise deviates from standard size.

For this reason, it is the usual practice for a maintenance-free door to be supplied complete with the surrounding door frame in which it fits. This creates the problem that the fitting of a maintenance-free door entails knocking out of the existing door frame, installation of the new frame, and restoration of the adjacent brickwork and plaster. This additional work very substantially increases the capital costs involved in replacing conventional timber doors with maintenance-free doors, often to an extent which outweighs the subsequent savings to be achieved.

It is an object of this invention to provide a construction of maintenance-free door which avoids the requirement for installation of a new surrounding door frame.

According to the invention, there is provided a door which is substantially maintenance free, and comprises a main inner part having a metal or plastics maintenance-free face, said inner part being rectangular with dimensions slightly less than a predetermined door size, and a hardwood strip surrounding and bonded to the edges of said inner part and being of a workable thickness bringing said door up to said predetermined size.

The door in accordance with the invention is maintenance free except for the hardwood strip surround, which will most preferably be of a natural wood finish requiring very infre quent treatment, say at intervals of not less than ten years, with a preservative such as varnish. However, at the time of installation, the hardwood strip surround can be worked on site, as by planing or abrading, in order to fit the door into an existing door frame which is warped, lacking in squareness or otherwise deviates from a standard door frame size. Assuming that the inner part is of a standard maintenance-free construction with a softwood packer on the interior, the door in accordance with the invention can be cut for insertion of handle or lock mechanisms in the same manner as a conventional timber door.If desired, the inner softwood packer may extend up to the edge surface of the inner part, at least at positions where a handle or lock mechanism may be fitted for example, since the edges of the inner part are covered by the hardwood strip surround.

The hardwood strip surround may be bonded to the inner part by screws (with recessed heads hidden by plugs), by dowel pins or by gluing with a suitable plastics/wood or metal/wood adhesive, or most preferably by a combination of such methods.

Typically the hardwood strip surround will have a thickness in the range of 5 to 30 mm, preferably 10 to 20 mm, and most preferably of the order of 15 mm. For comparison purposes, it is mentioned that a common standard door size is 838 mm by 1994 mm. A typical door thickness is 44 mm, and the hardwood strip surround will have a width corresponding to said thickness.

The hardwood strip forming the surround may have a rectangular strip section, but if desired the inner part may be preformed, as by extrusion in the case of aluminium for example or by moulding in the case of fibre glass or other plastics material, with a grooved ribbed or otherwise shaped edge surface to which is bonded a hardwood strip surround cut along one face with a matching rib, groove or other shaping, thereby to provide for positive location of the hardwood strip and to give an increased area of adhesive bonding.

A door construction in accordance with the invention is exemplified in the following drawings, in which' Figure 1 is an elevational view of the door, and Figure 2 is a cross-section on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1.

Referring to the drawings, the door in accor dance with the invention comprises an inner part 10 which is moulded of plastics material, more especially fibre glass, around internal timber packers 12. The method of manufacture of this inner part 10 of the door is a conventional one well known in the art for the production of maintenance-free doors. How ever, in accordance with the invention, the in ner part 10 is made with external dimensions (808 mm by 1964 mm) which are less by 30 mm horizontally and vertically than the usual standard door size of 838 mm by 1994 mm.

Although not shown, the conventional method of manufacture may also be modified in that the timber packers 12 extend right up to and along the outer edge faces of the inner part.

The illustrated door is intended for partial glazing at 14, typical of an external door, but this is not relevant to the present invention, which is equally applicable to a plain door of the kind used internally, when the recessed panel at 16 will also usually be omitted, and the letter slot 18 and weather board 20 are also not required.

In accordance with the invention, the inner part 10 has bonded to it a hardwood strip surround 22 which brings the door up to standard size. Thus, the hardwood strip 22 is 15 mm thick. Bonding is by means of screws 24, with heads recessed into the hardwood strip 22 and concealed by plugs 26, and also by means of a plastics/wood adhesive 28 (see Fig. 2). The adhesive is applied as a layer thereof on the outer edge faces of the inner part 10 or one face of the hardwood strip 22 or both, and the fixing screws 24 have the primary purpose of holding the hardwood surround 22 tight against the inner part 10 while the adhesive sets. it is alternatively possible, of course, to hold the door in a press while the adhesive is setting; the screws 24 are then not required.

Fig. 2 also shows the inner edge face of the inner part of the door shaped at 30 to enable fixing of the glass in the opening to be glazed.

The door in accordance with the invention is substantially maintenance free, since the hardwood surround 22 can have a natural finish requiring only very infrequent treatment with preservative. However, the hardwood surround 22 enables the door to be worked on site, for example to cut a handle or lock mechanism slot therein, but more particularly so that trimming and shaping can be carried out to fit the door into an existing door frame, which in the course of aging will often have warped or otherwise deviated from standard dimensions.

Claims (10)

1. A substantially maintenance-free door comprising a main inner part having a metal or plastics maintenance-free face, said inner part being rectangular with dimensions slightly less than a predetermined door size, and a hardwood strip surrounding and bonded to the edges of said inner part and being of a workable thickness bringing said door up to said predetermined size.

2. A door according to claim 1, wherein the surrounding hardwood strip is of a natural wood finish.

3. A door according to claim 1 or claim 2, wherein the main inner part is of a conventional maintenance-free construction having a softwood packer.

4. A door according to claim 3, wherein the softwood packer extends up to the inner edge of the surrounding hardwood strip, at least at positions where a handle and/or lock may be fitted.

5. A door according to any of claims 1 to 4, wherein the hardwood strip is bonded to the main inner part by one or more of the devices of plugged screws or dowel pins or glue.

6. A door according to any of claims 1 to 5, wherein the surrounding hardwood strip has a thickness in the range of 5 to 30 mm, preferably 10 to 20 mm, and most perferably of the order of 15 mm.

7. A door according to any of claims 1 to 6, wherein the surrounding hardwood strip has a rectangular strip section.

8. A door according to any of claims 1 to 7, wherein the surrounding hardwood strip is formed with a shaped inner edge surface for bonding to a matching shaping on the outer edge of the main inner part.

9. A door according to any of claims 1 to 8, wherein the main inner part is made of a plastics material such as fibre glass.

10. A substantially maintenance-free door as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.