OPENING
Good health includes eliminating needless sources of repetitive and recurrent frustration and anxiety as well as seeking to prevent exposures to strong exposures or recurrent exposures to toxic factors. In our daily life, we pass through and depend upon doors many times each day. Their ability to serve us effectively depends upon our understanding their characteristics, planning for reduced maintenance and high longevity, and, ensuring that they add pleasure and functionality to our life. Are your doors constant irritants or pleasant tools?

DOORS HAVE MANY PURPOSES.
Each application is best undertaken if the type of door and material used is matched to what is the intended purpose or desires. Here are some possibilities to assist you in finding a focus:

1. protection against outdoor climate;
2. segregation of indoor climates;
3. segregation of business from home;
4. privacy of owners/renters from common areas;
5. privacy for undisturbed sleep;
6. privacy for personal hygiene;
7. privacy for clothing changes;
8. privacy for intimacy;
9. safety from assault;
10. decorativeness.

SOLID WOOD:
Demands for safety and security as well as privacy have long been satisfied by solid wood doors. Such use can be complicated by construction, aging, choice of finish, climatic protection provided, factors in the construction it is placed into, indoor climate, use.

• CONSTRUCTION:
  Solid wood doors must be made from single or multiple planks of wood. These are sawed from harvested trees. Trees have knots where branches originally grew from and imperfections where insects, birds, or fungi have left their mark. For this reason, only the almost blemish-free and inner planks of trees can be used to make doors. Trees of larger size take centuries to grow and few of these remain. Few doors have been made of single solid wood planks for decades.

  To use multiple planks to build a door, various combinations of alignment, diagonal support, jointing and gluing have been used. These can easily be observed in woodworking resource books or wood-door supply stores. Efforts are made by the carpenter to ensure that the door will remain square and will resist the twisting forces applied by its normal hanging as well as repeated closings and openings.
  
  

• AGING:
  When a tree is first cut down, its wood core is still freshly alive and has been termed "green". That is, it still has a high moisture content. As it "cures" by drying out, the evaporation of the moisture and drying of the life supporting sap reduces the pliability of the wood and makes it harder, and thinner.

  Unequal drying and unequal pressures on different part of the length of a board or plank will encourage it to bend in an effort to equalize the pressures. This is used to advantage in some forms of woodworking. With doors, a flat, untwisted plank is easier to work with. Often such wood is dried in a furnace called a kiln. This provides an even drying of the complete board and equal weighting and support along the length of the board prevents it from developing twists.

  CARELESS HANDLING of the wood after it has been prepared, or after a "raw" unfinished door has been manufactured can undue some of the efforts taken initially to provide quality. Storage previous to retail sale and installation of solid wood doors in damp locations, fluctuating temperatures and in positions providing uneven support --- encourage the new door to warp and develop a mildew covering. cheaply stored doors are often cheaper than average at the store and much more expensive than other doors in preparation for installation, repair, and maintenance.
  
  

• CHOICE OF FINISH:
  To avoid deterioration and aging through the influence of moisture and sunlight, solid wood is often covered with preservatives (against mildew and insects), stains (to enhance the grain markings on the door and to add color), shellac or varnish (to seal the wood), paint (for ease of cleaning and attractiveness and homogeneity of color), and metal (to provide protection against boot strikes and forced entry).

  EACH COVERING has more and less professional methods of application. Doing the job better ensures a more attractive and functional product as well as less longer-term maintenance. Each liquid finish has solvents which will take time to outgas (cure) after application --- and to which individuals may be hypersensitive. Prolonged, repetitive, unprotected exposure to such toxic fumes almost guarantees hypersensitivity development.
  
  

• CLIMATIC PROTECTION PROVIDED:
  Doors are often used to protect the owner from unwanted cold, heat, wetness, and dryness, a lack of reasonable consideration for the impact of differences from one side of the door to the other often results in more maintenance being required.

  AN UNFINISHED SOLID WOOD DOOR on a modern bathroom would daily suffer from high moisture inducing forces on one side and high drying forces on the other. Door disfunction and unattractiveness could be expected in the form of mildew accumulation and twisting deformation of the door. A sealing finish would resist these factors. The high temperatures of a sauna will destroy most finishes and act adversely against many hardwoods. Cedar, a softwood, has always functioned well in such a harsh environment.
  
  

• FACTORS in the CONSTRUCTION IT IS PLACED INTO:
  Solid wood doors are heavy when compared to hollow-core, plastic, and lightweight mirror doors. While they are sturdy and can provide decades of service easily if well designed and maintained, their surroundings can diminish that efficiency. If door frames or a house has been built which are not true (perfectly perpendicular, level, and square) --- mounting the door in it can result in opening/closing and swinging problems. Cedar shake remnants are often used to shim the frames of doorways to make them perfectly square and easily accommodate the door to be hung. It is far better to make the frame fit the door than to modify the door to fit the frame. In older construction, this is not the easier route.

  MODIFYING a solid wood door to fit a frame that is no longer or may never have been true usually requires planning away parts of the edge of the door. This destroys any finish that has been added. Failure to replace the finish encourages the door to absorb moisture into the exposed wood and expand (causing the store to jam). If the moisture swollen door is then fit to the opening by more edge removal, during dry periods, the wood will dry out and shrink --- to result in a loose fit which may admit more drafts, or, result in insecure locks and closures. Truing a frame in new construction before finishing strips are added is relatively easy. In finished or older construction, finishing strips will have to be removed and possibly replaced.
  
  

• USE:
  Doors require hardware and finishing according to their use.
  If the door is of solid wood it should have correctly sized hinges and the correct number of hinges to match the weight of the door. Many woodworking references have such tables. Specific sized screws are usually advised for use with specific sized hinges. Using nails instead of hinges guarantees problems with the door becoming loose and requiring maintenance. Screws which are too short will eventually provide the same frustration. Attaching hinges by sinking the attachment screws into a strong base like a joist or hardwood frame is good strategy for long service and low frustration.
  
  
  

  SLIDING:
  Sliding doors are often used to reduce clearance space that must be left for other types of doors to swing or move into. These spaces are not allowed to be used for any other purpose for they then obstruct the opening of the door which requires them. Sometimes, room dimensions, preferred appliance or furniture placement, or ease of use may contribute to the selection of a sliding door design.

  The movement of sliding doors is frequently governed by the presence of either or both of ceiling and floor tracks. Small wheels, rollers or slides may both guide the door along the track and restrict its movement to the track. The type of hardware required is often a factor of the weight and dimensions of the door or set of doors. The doors may extend all the way to the ceiling, or, to framing at a distance from the ceiling to afford space for decoration, windows, lighting, or standard sized doors for an oversize opening.

  The placement of sliding doors may be such that a single door slides to the side and into an opening inside a wall. These may include a swing out latch at mid-height along the edge to afford finger access to a part of the door, when in concealed placement, so that it can be pulled out of the wall and shut across the door opening. Such doors may be expected to provide moderate levels of privacy and may be fitted with closure catches and simple locks. Many are hollow core doors. Some are solid wood construction. Mirror or glass doors are possible yet uncommon in such placements.

  Other placements may include a pair or multiple doors which act to close wider openings, often closets, and travel on adjacent tracks. This allows one to be stored behind or in front of another. The drawback in this arrangement is that all of multiple areas cannot usualy be afforded access at the same time. Often this placement entails the use of large dimension units which are required to provide visual separation rather than sound and visual privacy. Typically thin and lightweight materials including cardboard, sheet metal, plastic, and fibreboard are utilized. The heavier and more frequent use the doors have, the more often they may require their hardware to be adjusted for wear.

  For the health conscious person, the factors most often considered include these:

  1. degree and duration of outgasing of the structure and the finish;
  2. amount of space saved and lack of obstructiveness over a swing-out style;
  3. degree of ease of opening and multi-person access conflicts;
  4. complexity of track and framing installation and finishing;
  5. ability to change color or pattern of display for stress reduction.
  
  
  
  

  BIFOLD:
  Doors which fold against one another are called bifold.
  They are usually composed of two or three (tri-fold) panels joined together along their height with hinges. They are often attached to a ceiling or top-of-doorway track, and may also be stabilized with a bottom track. These doors come in a variety of materials: wood, wood with plastic window, metal, stiff plastic, and laminates.

  MAINTENANCE REQUIREMENTS for bifold doors largely depend upon the quality of the suspension hardware and track plus the quality of the finish. Most suspension hardware allows for adjustment to counter wear and facilitate installation. Metal doors have a poor record for hardware longevity and performance.

  Bifold doors both save and occupy space.
  Bifold doors only intrude 1/4 of the way into the room that a standard swing door does so they have been popular in bedroom closet applications where the bedroom is relatively small. Unfortunately, they also intrude 1/4 of the opening distance into the closet. People seem to often have a difficulty in leaving adequate space in the closet to both open and close this style of door. Sooner than later, articles fall or are placed too close to the door making it difficult and frustrating to open. A moment of anger can result in damage to the door through force and eventual requirements for repair, or, subsequent repetitive instances of difficult operation.

  Bifold doors may be one of the few options to closet closure when rooms have been constructed too small for the furniture deemed necessary by the occupier, or, when the doorway to the closet has been left very small relative to the width of the closet. Double sets of bifold doors have a duplicated set of advantages and disadvantages.

  UNDER-STAIRS ACCESS AREAS can be screened off with an enclosure including a bifold door. Attractive lighting into the adjoining room can be had by using a solid wood bifold door with cut out panels into which decorated glass or plastic have been mounted. A light in the understair space can provide a backlight which shines through the window or coloured plastic to provide muted lighting and artistic pleasure.
  
  
  

  MIRRORED:
  A door which acts like a mirror has a number of health enhancing advantages which are sometimes beneficial.
  These include:

  1. minimal or no outgasing of toxic chemicals;
  2. making a space look less confining;
  3. substituting for windows;
  4. magnifying dim lighting;
  5. greater privacy;
  6. long-term use;
  7. pleasuring our Ego.
  
  

  Mirrored doors are frequently made from light metals or mirrored plastics and are thus comparatively lightweight according to size. Mirrored glass should be avoided because of its shatter danger and because of its heavy weight. Weight contributes to maintenance requirement, installation difficulty and purchase price, and, deters from function as a door. Mirrored doors can be either sliding, folding, swinging, or a combination. Sliding doors tend to have the least maintenance because they have the most support and lack hinges which can increase repair frequency.
  
  
  

  A DOOR SUMMARY:
  

  • longevity = cost + maintenance;
  • cost = material + finish + labour;
  • reduction of maintenance = degree of quality;
  • quality = design/planning + material + care;
  • labour = time + knowledge + convenience;
  • your labour = TIME + experimentation + learning;
  • happiness = health + low maintenance;
  • health = dependability + convenience.