Exterior and Interior Doors

Exterior door assemblies for routine pedestrian passage are typically metal door assemblies (metal doors with no glazing in reinforced metal frames) or narrow-stile aluminum doors. Narrow-stile aluminum doors are attractive, so they may be used as the main public entry doors in commercial offices. These doors have large spans of glazing with little support for the glazing. Narrow-stile aluminum doors are not designed to resist forced entry.

Interior doors that need to resist forced entry should be metal doors in reinforced metal frames or solid-core wood doors in reinforced wood or metal frames. The conventional method of hanging door frames in rough openings does not reinforce the door jambs enough to make them resistant to spreading. For maximum resistance against forced entry, the door frames must be solidly supported against the building frame. Metal doors in metal frames are preferred, because wooden doors and wooden frames can shatter when they are hit with sufficient force. Watch a television episode when the police use a battering ram against a residential wooden door in a wooden frame to see an illustration of this point.

Interior doors that need to resist forced entry should be hung so they swing outward from the secured area toward the attacker, not inward. This approach takes full advantage of whatever resistance the door assembly presents to forced entry.

Interior doors that do not need to resist forced entry can be hollow-core wood doors in wood frames, hung using conventional reinforcing techniques. These assemblies are less expensive.