I just had a new composite front door, fanlight and sidelights installed. The whole lot sits in an PVCu frame fixed to the walls and a beam across the top. There's quite a lot of movement in the frame when shutting the door (somewhere between 2-5mm I'd guess), particularly in the top corner on the opposite side to the hinges. The installer assured me that it was acceptable by their standards, however I'm not so convinced. It's not like its going to be moving any less in 5-10 years time. It's enough that I can push that corner and observe the movement without opening/closing the door. Annotated picture attached, red lines indicate where the aluminium bars are (notice there isn't a horizontal one), and the blue arrow indicates where all the movement is.
The better quaility door frames have galvanised steel reinforcement, compared to usually used alumimum.
Flexing, hard to tell on the joints as they're covered with trim (but it did flex enough to make some of it pop out)
Yeah, I don't like it when they fit a door and sidescreens, then put a separate fixed frame right along the top. If you had full height door and light, then full height sidescreens, you'd have had strengthening bars top to bottom. Strengthening bars that aren't full length do nothing except keep that part that they are in, straight, independent of(in your case) the top horizontal frame. Difficult to do anything about it now Mr. HandyAndy - Really
Yep totally agree with the above , **** design should've run the sidelights full height & made 3 separate frames to sit on top , will give you even more grief when the door starts to drop . I've fitted in the past strengthening bars to the joint between door & sidelights from top to bottom like a male & female coupler with a cover caps that snaps on that will certainly beef it all up & stop the movement , but you'd be adding 50mm approx to the inside ..
Totally correct. In my opinion it's not 'Fit for purpose' as eventually that frame will crack on that join,it take an idiot to see it should have been a full height frame as pointed out earlier.
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