Getting door openings right at masonry stage
Shuttering is the last responsible moment to change a door specification. These are the dimensions to hold.
There is a narrow window on every project where a door specification can still change without costing anything: before the opening is formed. Once shuttering is struck, a door that does not fit becomes either a chased wall or a compromised detail.
So the dimensions below are worth holding at masonry stage rather than at joinery stage.
The wooden range envelope
Every Doorzzen wooden range shares one dimensional envelope. Shutters are 32–60 mm thick, 600–1200 mm wide and up to 3000 mm high. Frames are 40–60 mm thick and 100–300 mm wide. Architraves are 8–18 mm thick and 30–70 mm wide.
The frame width is the figure most often missed. At 300 mm it is accommodating a substantial wall thickness, and it changes the reveal you are drawing.
The steel range matrix
The steel security range is supplied in published heights of 2050, 2150, 2250 and 2350 mm, and widths of 860, 960, 1050, 1160 and 1170 mm, in single and unequal-pair (“mother-son”) configurations. External frame size and visible opening size are published for each model.
Because the steel range is a manufactured product rather than a made-to-measure one, the opening follows the door here — not the other way round.
What to ask for, and when
Request the opening-sizes sheet at the point you are drawing the masonry, not the point you are ordering doors. If the scheme needs something outside the standard envelope, that is also the moment to raise it: heights to 3000 mm, widths to 1200 mm and frame widths to 300 mm are all within the standard range, and non-standard requests are better handled as an enquiry than as a site variation.
Still deciding?
Get swatches in your hand before you specify.
We will send physical finish samples plus an edge or section sample, so you can judge the surface and the banding rather than take a page’s word for it.
Common questions
- What tolerance should I allow around the frame?
- Clearance tolerances, fixing detail and gasket specification are set out in the installation guidelines. Request them alongside the opening sizes sheet so the mason and the joiner are working to the same document.
- Can Doorzzen work to an opening that is already built?
- Often, within the standard envelope. Send the measured opening with your enquiry and we will confirm before quoting rather than after.
