Think about what the builder said---both doors opening will have problems(because of normal foundation settling), but a single opening door will not? Same settling, same forces acting on the opening, same potential problems.

What would happen is the non functioning door would act more like a wall to minimize problems, not eliminate them. There is framing that can be done to minimize the double door operating problems. Bigger and longer header, more robust king/jack studs, and wall bracing in the studs. Might cost an additional $500(during construction, more if done after construction).

I'd have a single door mostly because the one closer to your kitchen is going to be a pinch point for traffic and a door swing will only complicate it.

Overall, I think french doors look cool for that one time a year that you can open them with a flourish and make a grand entrance.... :-)

I've never heard of double french doors becoming an issue with house settlement. We have two sets of french doors in our current home and have had them for 10 years. No issues at all. The main one is in the kitchen/dining area and we use just the 1 door 99% of the time. We have opened both doors on a nice day and I love the option.

In our new build, we're also putting in a set of french doors and both will be operable. I plan on using those double doors to move in our biggest pieces of furniture and not worry about squeezing things through a narrower/single door.

Make sure you have enough room for the doors to open with your dining table, etc.

Otherwise, I'd be very concerned if the builder feels the house will settle that much as to why he thinks that.

When both doors are operable, different hardware (more expensive) is needed for secure locking. When a single door is operable, less expensive hardware is needed.

One common approach for locking when both leafs are operable is a cremone bolt, on one leaf, which secured the door to the floor and header above. The remaining leaf is dead bolted to the leaf with the cremone bolt.

Alternatively, some French Door sets can be ordered with an intergral fastener on one leaf which locks into the sill and head.

Virgil is on it, he wants to give you a single swing door because it is cheaper for HIM....................

I actually like the idea of them swinging out but isn't that considered less secure?

As far as I know, in-swing doors are less secure. They are more easily kicked in.

Weather-wise, too, I'm pretty sure high wind areas -- like the hurricane heaven we call Florida -- mandate the more secure outswing door.

It's harder to pull than to push, since your body weight can get behind a good push.

For what it's worth, I vote "no" on a one-side-stationary faux French door. I have one in the rental I'm in now. Went something like this:

"Ooooooh, a French door above the porch! How freakin' adorable."

*walks upstairs to first room*

"Hey, wait, this has a weird knob... on the far side...? But how do you open...?"

*investigates up close*

"What, seriously? It's just a door with a hinged window attached that looks like a door? So how do I open the window part...?"

*feeling mighty blonde*

"Seriously??? You can't even open this up??? This is an awfully fancy inoperable window. I hate this thing. Who invented these???"

lol

Our french doors will open OUT on our new build. They were originally drawn as in-swing by our architect but the more we studied the room/layout and the way we'd move in and out of the house, it made more sense to make them out-swing.

Anglophilia - glad to read that you like your Marvin door since that's what we are getting. It seemed awesome in the showroom so I'm glad it's great in real life too!

Ok. When requesting a quote on some french doors from our builder's "door guy" he says he needs to know which side will be dominant. My response was that both doors will open. He says that both of them will open but one side will only be for looks as far as knobs go.

What?

The knobs will look the same inside and out, but only one actually turns like a normal door. When the second is unlatched (on inside edge - not visible when closed), one just pushes it open. If you're right handed, you probably want the right hand one to have the real latch.

liv2tell, it sounds like he is planning to supply a pair of doors, with one leaf which has integral dead bolts which can be extended into the sill and head, making it a locked leaf. When the dead bolts are extended, the door becomes fixed and cannot be opened. The other leaf, the active leaf, has the operating latch hardware and the dead bolt, both of which lock into the locked leaf. When the integral dead bolts are retracted, the locked leaf is free to open, but then there's nothing to hold either leaf closed tightly--only the latch and dead bolt of the active leaf.

In essence, this is a single swing door set, for all practical purposes.

Does this make any sense?

The builders door guy does not know French doors. There are all kinds of opening types, one handle/cremone bolt, two handle/one operating the cremone bolt assembly, and handles with linkages similar to the cremone bolt assembly.

The reason most residential entry doors open inward is so storm doors can be installed. The door designs also put the hinge pins to the interior so the pins cannot be accessed from the outside.

It makes much more sense to have entry doors open outward for safety. Outswing doors are much more difficult to breach from the outside.

So are the hinge pins still on the outside with an outswinging door? And that is considered less safe, right? (Not to sound like I am pro-inswing, just making sure I understand.)

The estimate was very affordable compared to "double swing" French doors I browsed at Home Depot's website.

All French doors have a primary and secondary leaf. That is because there is a vertical weather seal known as an astragal on the outside leading edge of the secondary leaf so that leaf must be closed before the primary leaf. To open requires the primary leaf to be opened and then the secondary leaf can be opened.

On older French doors the primary and secondary left are called active and inactive. The active leaf locks with a dead bolt to the inactive leaf which is locked to the head and sill with some kind of surface bolts.

Newer French doors offer hidden multi-point locking that allows each door leaf to be opened with a lever handle. To close and lock the doors, the secondary door is closed and top and bottom locking pins are set by lifting the lever handle. Then the primary door leaf is closed and either top and bottom pins are set into the head and sill by lifting a lever handle or top and bottom hooked pins are set into the edge of the secondary door leaf. A dead bolt operated with an interior thumb turn is usually included on the primary leaf.

I know that one of these systems is offered by Andersen on their Frenchwood and their Renewal models and Marvin offers it on their Ultimate French doors. I would guess many other manufacturers also offer this kind of hardware and Baldwin and Emtek offer the handle sets.

A reason to not use a multi-locking system is to save money but you should at least price the option.

Here is a video of multi-point locking.

Here is another

"Double doors" just means there are 2 leafs. When they are fully glazed they are called French doors. Home Depot is not very savvy about doors and windows. If your doors are cheaper than Home Depot doors I would be concerned especially since the builder is assuming they will not work well; the settling excuse is nonsense. What is the brand and model?

Answer for the security of inswing versus outswing door hinges. Outswing doors can be built with several different types of security hinges to prevent easy removal of the pins. Increases the security several fold.

Security hinges