Source for Passive House Door
I’m trying to find a way to find a single entry door to replace an existing door in my home in southern California with a nice passive house door but every US company I’ve looked into requires that have a 20-unit minimum or wants me to replace everything in my home. Same thing with international companies that won’t ship to the US and the ones that do have similar minimums. See screenshot of relevant area of the “contact us” page from Glo Windows. I have a modest 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home and don’t even have 20 windows and doors in my home to replace. What’s a low-end homeowner to do when I just want to do this over time and just want to replace as stuff breaks?
This doesn’t bode well for maintenance and/or passive house adoption if homeowners aren’t able to maintain their homes. What happens when a homeowner breaks a single window? Do they have to replace all the windows and doors for their entire home?
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Replies
Try Doors of Distinction:
https://doorsofdistinction.com/
They are on the expensive side, last door I got from them was about $5k. But it was beautiful and air-tight.
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https://www.vettawindows.com/elite92-alu
Canadian, not U.S., but very reasonably priced, although shipping costs may kill you. Imported from Poland.
alan,
Have you done any modelling to see whether using a good but not PH certified replacement makes any appreciable difference?
No modeling at all. I'm not tied to the certification.
It's just that I keep seeing "energy efficient" being thrown around without any actual R-values listed and it's all just marketing speak that turns it into zero meaning for me but that's a whole other ball of wax / nit pick about installers / resellers that try to "sell" homeowners on windows or doors. The average window and door reseller doesn't even know what PH is when I ask about it so that's why I'm turning to the fine folks here.
I ended up spec'ing out my own windows for the salesman the last time I had to replace a window or two to meet building code. Now that I'm looking at doors, it seems to be much harder to find on my own.
Alan,
Yeah, lots of greenwashing among suppliers with all the right catch-phrases.
You might try this company. Again it's Canadian, so shipping may preclude them:
https://www.innotech-windows.com/showrooms/where-to-buy-vancouver
Malcolm, here's the response from Innotech:
Thank you for touching base. We sincerely appreciate you reaching out and for your interest. Unfortunately, your request falls outside of our serviceable area and we are unable to provide you a quote at this time. Hopefully one day we’ll be in our area so thanks again.
Sincerely,
Mika Laspa
Sales Manager
One of the issues is the way doors are sold. Typically they are sold as slabs to a local distributor, who hangs them in a frame and bores them for locks. The distributor also installs the weather stripping. For a door the most important attribute is the air seal -- and that is determined by a company that is not the one that puts their name on the door. So a Masonite or Jeld Wen in one part of the country is different from in other parts of the country. I think this is why their websites tend to be devoid of useful information, because they really can't talk specifics.
If you are looking for a mostly glass door, you may want to try a local fabricator that uses one of the European Aluminum systems.
https://www.reynaers.com/en/consumers/home
https://www.schueco.com/de-en/home-owners
In my area Shueco was more costly that Reynaers. I contacted Reynaers corporate and they called me and put me touch with three local fabricators. I am currently working with one of them on supplying two entrance doors, a large lift and slide and window wall as well as all the window systems.
They can make almost any size with passive house specs, with privacy glass, etc. Masterline 10 is the highest performing but Slimline 38 is more budget friendly. The performance of these units with triple glazed glass is quite high, but they are rather costly. An entire house build with the system costs more than the first house I purchased.
It's not passive house, but I think it qualifies as "pretty good house" material. It's thicker than a regular door, specs say it seal better too. https://www.provia.com/entry-doors/embarq