How did your previous wood door hold up? How are your neighbors' doors holding up? We have several wood doors on the house and they have done fine for decades. It gets below zero and in the 90's here. Two in protected areas.

I've had some wood exterior doors - in Minnesota. They require more meticulous maintenance to keep them looking good and to prevent them from rotting. The more they are protected from the elements (moisture) such as under a porch type entry the less maintenance required. We bought a house last year with two completely rotten wood exterior doors. The house is 12 years old. Water splashed up on the doors when it rained and because previous owner did not keep up with regular maintenance they rotted out. The front door that's covered by a porch is still okay. We replaced the rotten doors with wood interior, clad exterior as we don't want the maintenance burden of wood and they are not at all protected from the elements.

The wood door we installed in our other house 10 years ago is like new. It's finished with marine grade varnish, under a front porch type entry and has a glass storm door in the winter. Screen in the summer doesn't protect from rain. I would sometimes wipe the exterior off if rain blew toward that side of the house and got it all wet.

Thank you both. Our previous homes had wooden front doors from the 1920's and they were just fine. One was stained wood and a lot of glass and was covered by about four feet of porch. The other was painted wood with toplights and there was only a small awning type portico over it. The painted door also had a storm door, which the woman at the door store said would only make things worse in terms of humidity, etc affecting the door.

The homes in my neighborhood that look like they have the original doors, the doors look fine. That is why I was so surprised by the warnings from the door salesperson--if all these doors have lasted since 1969, how can a new one perish before the warranty is up?

I think I am just going to look for a wooden door and trust my porch to keep it intact. Oh, and have a professional paint it!

We have a wood front door and have been in our house for 11 years. The front door faces north and is covered by a porch and has held up very well. We just had our house power washed and painted this spring, and the washing blasted off some of the varnish from the bottom of the door jamb so my husband decided to re-varnish it to protect the door jamb. He went ahead and re-varnished the whole door even though the door itself was fine, but he'd originally used a semi-gloss and wanted to take the sheen down a notch so re-did the whole thing.

Our back French doors (also wood but facing south and with no porch cover), on the other hand, have not held up so well :( We finally added storm doors a few years ago to give them some sun protection and that's helped, but they have definitely taken a beating in the summer sun and need to be refinished.

Wood doors are more prone to humidity changes in addition to threats from harsh weather and insect damage. Those humidity changes make it more difficult to keep a tight seal, as the door swells and contracts with the humidity changes. New growth wood might be more problematic than old growth wood, I'd think.

Hard to believe you can't now get a door that looks like wood but is a more sturdy and weather hardy polymer. Depending your climate, you also want the glass area double paned as an insulator so cold doesn't get in and AC out, if you have it.

I'm sure a lot of people will balk at this, but if I got one in the style you want, I'd get a Dutch door. Love those and the whole idea behind them.

Currently I have wood doors. The north facing one, subject to little sun ,but all the other elements, rotted. I don't know how old it was, since it was on the house when I bought it. My front door,exposed to the sun, split, as did it's replacement - four years. But I dd buy a cheap HD door.

Wood-look doors

http://www.thermatru.com/products/entry/fiberglass-entry-doors/ccr/index.aspx

Laughablemoments summed it up perfectly, especially the new growth wood versus old growth. I believe the dire warnings are given to protect the manufacturer from people who are clueless about wood and its need for maintenance. Personally I would keep looking for a synthetic of some type that would be less maintenance - but even they can be beat up by constant sunlight.

I wanted a wood door to replace our old wood but DH wanted fiberglass. I said only if we could get one that didn't look cheap and plasticy! I fell in love with Provia fiberglass doors but we had a larger sidelite and I didn't like their options for that. Next options were Waudena or Home Guard. We went with Home Guard. One side painted and the other stained. It looks like wood. Styles were more limited than with wood but worked for us. We had it installed last fall and the first winter we didn't have to put a blanket by the door when it got really cold out. Even though no noticeable draft it just couldn't get sealed up like the fiberglass. We added the Provia storm door which is built like a tank.

Exactly a year ago I was making the same decision. I had an old steel door with a little half-moon window at the top and I was craving light. I was about to get a 3/4 light in fiberglass (painted) until I realized that I really wasn't supposed to drill into it and I planned to hang a roller blind for privacy.

I changed my plans to a wood door. At first I thought stained mahogany, but since it faces west and gets blasted by the sun in the summer afternoons, I didn't want the maintenance of refinishing every couple of years. So I went with painted fir. I had no issues from the vendor with weather. I have a 48" overhang, which I think is the minimum.

It's like I got a window as well as a new door. I wish I'd done this years ago instead of a stupid, ineffective skylight.

I was going to mention what Linelle alluded to and that is perhaps it depends on the type of wood. Our front door is mahogany but it is well protected and faces west so I'm not really of any help. It looks as good as the day we installed it 6 years ago.

But I would research the different types of wood, their maintenance requirements and how they stand up to weathering.

Lots of wood doors here with no coverage. The houses have stoops and the doors are exposed to the weather. And storm doors are almost unheard of here. Keep a good paint job on them and they should be okay.

Our home faces west, and we have double mahogany doors with 3/4 glass. Personally, I probably would have painted the wood rather than stain it, because I like paint, lol, but pretty much every home on my street has big double mahogany doors so we stained ours too. They are lovely, but they truly need to be refinished every two years. The western sun is brutal, even though they are in a recessed area. Fortunately, I have a guy who does it for a couple hundred dollars so not too bad but still a pain. I am toying with painting them if my dh will let me, but it's doubtful, lol.

We are in NY and have a stained mahogany door with sidelights, western exposure. No storm door, but there is a large overhang that protects it. We have had it for a few years now without issues, but we do understand the need we will have to maintain. I, personally, do not like the look of wood-look fiberglass and didn't want it in the front of our house. But we did put a Provia fiberglass door in the rear last winter, and it is excellent quality.

Our front and back(side) doors are original, 1960, and painted. They are fine except for some gouging on the side from key monkeying. Doesn't show. We do have storm doors here in Chicagoland.

Thank you all so much. The new growth vs old growth wood was what I thought about when I saw all the doors with those warnings--I thought new random wood was unlikely to hold up like the old wood, and also our 1920's wood doors seemed thicker than the wood exterior doors still on this 1969 house.

My front door faces east so even though there is a porch, it does get a lot of sun and as it is painted black, that might also be a factor that would affect the wood.

Linelle, your door is gorgeous! That is exactly what I want for my kitchen, where we could use the light and I could enjoy the view to the outdoors, too.

I'm going to check out the prices on the higher-quality woods...if I won't have to sell plasma, I still want wood.

Look for an old door at salvage places.

My front door is over 100 years old. On a covered porch. It does stick in the summer with the high humidity. I would take tribbrix advice and look at Habitat for Humanity or a salvage yard.

I also got a weighty fir screen door. I don't need a storm door but in fair weather, nothing makes me happier than an open front door with the sights and sounds of outdoors and plenty of cross-ventilation (no A/C). It has a delightful slam and latch sound when I close it.

Lily'smom, it's a fiberglass door and the info from the manufacturer says not to drill into it. The installer also said it was a bad idea to drill into it. I actually asked about the drilling because of wanting a knocker, not about the peephole, because I find peepholes creepy (too many horror movies?) but I'd get over that in order to be able to see (and have my kids see) out at this point. But if I am going to replace the door, I'd rather put the $ into getting a better one so I can have both the view and the light. My house really is a batcave.