What do we choose: PVC, aluminum or multi-layered wood doors?

Service Description

What do we choose: PVC, aluminum or multi-layered wood doors?

Choosing the material from which the window joinery will be made to a house, apartment, shop or company residence is a dilemma for many customers.

The customer receives advices from architects, builders, neighbors or even window joinery manufacturers whom are not always advised enough. On the other hand, some tips have “behind” them different interests that can mislead the client.

In addition to a number of technical requirements, such as wind resistance, human safety or various design and execution rules, the window joinery must meet a number of requirements that relate to the ease of use, the future maintenance and possible problems with use in time. I must say that almost any window joinery can be made of any of the materials: PVC, aluminum or multi-layered wood and in the beginning the customer can be satisfied.

In order to help the customers, I tried in table number one to describe the degree of satisfaction of PVC, aluminum and multi-layered wood with requirements that are important from the window joinery’s point of view. In addition to the three types of material, there are also combined versions such as aluminum-wood, aluminum-PVC. For these we did not have enough information to be able to analyze them.

The assessments are based on various technical documentations and the experience of over 15 years of the team of specialists in exterior joinery. When setting the requirements and the behavior we considered the plain and the hill areas of the country where the average maximum temperature of the warmest month exceeds 22° C. In the other mountain areas, some aspects change.

The lifetime is a requirement to which aluminum is far ahead in the top, and that is because as the time passes, the aluminum is hardening. The PVC wrapped in wood imitation has received a poor rating because no serious supplier of PVC profiles provides guarantees for this type of material.

The thermal insulation: The PVC has received the best grades, the maximum being for the profiles with 5 to 6 isolation chambers. The aluminum without breaking the thermal bridge can be used on the outside only when the rooms are not heated (garage, staircase) or the circulation is very intense.

The weight of the glazed surface in the total joinery area is important when we want more light to enter. For example, in a window with a height of 1500 mm and a width of 900 mm, the glass surface of an aluminum joinery is more than 22% higher than a multi-layered wood joinery. In addition to this, it should be noted that the heat losses through the low emissivity glass thermo-insulating glass are 1.1-1.4 W / mpoK than only 1.6 – 1.7 W / mpoK through the 70 mm multi-layered wood.

At weight, the highest ratings are obtained by the aluminum. The weight is important for the windows with large sheets and especially for doors.

The resistance to the atmospheric agents is a requirement that the wood imitation PVC due to problems arising from the exposure to the sun has a lower grade. The multi-layered wood also has a poor quality due to its low resistance to moisture and exposure to the sunlight.

The expansion of the profiles to the temperature variations from summer to winter or during the winter from the outside to the interior can cause inconvenience both in the joining area of ​​the masonry frame and in the case of moving sheets from windows and doors. Because of this, the wood imitation PVC, which has a coefficient of expansion of 2.4 mm / m, has achieved the lowest score.

Choosing the preferred color is a requirement that can be easily satisfied with aluminum because there are paint shops in London that have a large palette of colors on stock or they can supply relatively easily any color in the RAL color palette. With PVC there is a choice of a relatively small number of colors for both RAL and imitation wood. In wood imitation aluminum there is a fairly wide offer of wood essences on the market and, if necessary, a special one can be ordered. The multi-layered wood is made of several essences that can be painted in different shades.

Keeping the exterior look for more than 15 years is a requirement that is best met by the painted aluminum in various colors. The white PVC, due to its slight change in color to gray or beige, has received the satisfactory rating. The multi-layered wood, depending on the type of paints used, should be repainted after 3-7 years.

The subsequent maintenance: In this regard, we particularly considered the ease of removing and washing the window joinery. If in aluminum and PVC the only concern is not to wash with materials to attack the plastic or paint, on wood, as we have shown before, the paint deteriorates after a number of years making the window joinery maintenance difficult.

The requirement regarding the realization of the arcade windows, although it is a technical requirement, has been included in this analysis because it is important to choose the type of material. So if we have to realize a curved wooden window, we will eventually find a workshop to do it. If the window must be of aluminum, it should be checked if it can curve to the required radius. Instead, in PVC, even if the profile can be curved, it will no longer have the steel reinforcement, which is mandatory for any PVC joinery.

In addition to the requirements presented, the shape and size of the joinery, the location of the cardinal points, the location in relation to the direction and the intensity of the wind, the dust conditions in the area, the sources of noise, who uses the joinery, the room, the heating system and other “details” should be taken into consideration.

From the prism of the user, it is important to know if they are, for example, children. In this case, the mobile sheets of the doors and windows should be as light as possible and the handles accessible to them.

Equally important is whether the user is the owner of the building or if the window joinery is used by other people: students, scholars, patients, customers or employees. If the access to the window joinery is public, the owner will have to choose those options that will resist better both mechanically and functionally, but also to preserve the joinery look for a long time.

From the owner’s point of view, it is important that the window joinery fulfills a number of requirements such as: a good thermal and sound insulation, weather resistance, maintenance as easy as possible, to maintain its appearance for a long time and generally, to have as long as possible minimum maintenance costs.

In order to support the beneficiaries, we present in Table number 2 a comparison for different types of joinery made of PVC, aluminum and multi-layered wood, regarding the joinery behavior from the point of view of the owner’s interest.

For the correct and knowing choice of the most suitable material, it is necessary to analyze each joinery position from the perspective of all aspects.

Thus, from the point of view of the effects of solar rays on joinery, the aluminum behaves excellently unlike the wood imitation PVC that I do not recommend in this situation. From the point of view of heat loss to the exterior windows, the aluminum without breakage of the thermal bridge is unsatisfactory, but the wood imitation PVC gets an excellent grade.

The joinery made of aluminum or PVC which is exposed to rain and snow resists excellent, unlike that one which is made of multi-layered wood, where the problems can occur over time at joints.

The large aluminum joinery will not have problems, as opposed to the PVC joinery, which, in addition to the lower wind resistance, due to the high expansion coefficient, may cause problems in the joining between the frame and the wall, between the frame and the movable sheet, and if the assembly is defective, even profile bends (especially to the wood imitation joinery). Also, in large joineries, the weight should also be considered. If the aluminum is the easiest, the corner joining systems are mechanical, to the PVC the joining is made by hot melt but the steel reinforcement can not be welded. The large wood joinery, in addition to being very heavy, due to unfavorable atmospheric agents, can deform over time, resulting problems in sealing the mobile sheets.

The external doors for heavy traffic made of aluminum without thermal breakage have excellent behavior if, of course, the right profiles were chosen. The aluminum doors with breakage of the thermal bridge are somewhat heavier but have a lower thermal transfer. I do not recommend using the PVC profiles for external doors which are obedient to hard traffic at least for the following two reasons. They have large dimensions and as such there are problems due to dilations. Their weight being also high can raise problems both in keeping the geometric shape and the hardware. In addition, the traffic being intense, all sorts of scratches appear that over time spoil the appearance of the doors.

In the residential doors, the use of PVC profiles gives good results considering that they are not too large and not exposed to the sun. Instead, due to the poor heat transfer, I do not recommend the aluminum doors without thermal barriers to residential houses.

For the outdoor joinery from public institutions, shops, public access residence firms, we recommend the aluminum with breakage of the thermal bridge. The aluminum without the thermal barrier is satisfactory, which in these situations has only the disadvantage of unsatisfactory thermal transfer. It can be used successfully in joinery where the weight of the profiles in the total surface is small, the low-emissivity glass thermo-insulating glass compensating to a certain extent the disadvantage of the heat loss through the profiles.

The PVC joinery also works well, especially in normal size windows. The multi-layered wood does not recommend it, especially due to the costs of subsequent maintenance.

In the case of basements, warehouses, unheated areas joineries the PVC, aluminum or multi-layered wood profiles, they behave very well. However, I do not recommend the multi-layered wood because, as a rule, the maintenance of these spaces is neglected and the multi-layered wood must be maintained to have a long life.

For interior doors I recommend the aluminum without breaking the thermal bridge because they are lightweight and very easy to maintain. It would then follow the multi-layered wooden doors, which are heavier. The PVC inner doors have the disadvantages mentioned above, but they are no longer influenced by the sun’s rays. As a matter of fact, only in London we have seen using the PVC profiles for interior doors.

The glazed interior partitions are most often made of aluminum without a thermal barrier because they are durable and very easy to maintain. The wood is also very well behaved. Because, as a rule, the inner compartments are larger in size and the PVC profiles are less bend resistant, they are rarely used.

As we have seen, the choice of material is rather complicated, especially since we could not take into account all the situations in which the joinery is used and all the factors that act on it.

We have no claim that our assessments are complete or valid in all cases. Some grades may be better or worse depending on the profile and accessories provider, but also on the knowledge and experience of the joinery manufacturers.

We deliberately did not take into account the initial costs, for example the price, because the joinery is a long-term investment and as such, the price must be the least important factor.

However, the experience has shown me that, for now, the price is a factor taken into account by the beneficiaries. As such, in many situations they have chosen combinations. For example, the PVC windows have been made of oak imitation and the doors have been made of aluminum with the breaking of the thermal bridge painted in oak imitation. Or in other situations, the joinery exposed to the sun was made of aluminum and the north of PVC.

It is essential for the beneficiary to be knowledgeable and for this to be advised by carpenters but not necessarily interested in selling a certain type of joinery (PVC, aluminum or multi-layered wood).