Gregg Hoyer illustrates the design differences between a Therma-Tru Classic Craft and a Therma-Tru Fiber Classic including price, layout and visual appeal.

Transcript

Of all the exterior door products available today, fiberglass doors are the most popular.  Now fiberglass doors fall into the categories of premium and standard.  The premium category differs in design and performance.  In this video, we’re going to talk about design.

Here is a premium door, the Classic Craft door.  And here is a standard fiberglass door, the Fiber Classic door.  Now the premium Classic Craft door looks very authentic to wood.  Why?  Because the mold that made this skin was taken directly from a wood door.  It’s architecturally correct and what does that mean?  It means the stiles and the rails and the mullions and the panels are proportioned correctly and look just like a wood door.  On our standard fiberglass door, while it looks nice, the stiles and the rails are bigger, the panels are a little smaller, and this is done for cost-effectiveness.  On the Premium Classic Craft door, notice the authentic details.  The panel raise, the sticking or the moldings that go around the panels, the stile and rail joints and the square edge – all details that you’d find on a real wood door.  The grain on the premium Classic Craft door look so real because the mold was actually taken from a real wood product.

The standard fiberglass product also has a pleasing grain, but on closer inspection it doesn’t look as authentic to wood as the premium grain.  The stained grain doors can also be painted – you can paint anything, but we have a line of smooth fiberglass doors that are designed specifically for paint.  These doors are made with smooth fiberglass – there’s no grain to them and they really make a superior product for getting a very smooth paint surface.  Here we have the Classic Craft Canvas premium fiberglass door, and we have the standard fiberglass Smooth Star door.  The Classic Craft Canvas door is like all Classic Craft doors.  There is an architectural correct layout with the stile and rail dimensions and great detail to the panel raise, the sticking profiles, and the square edge to the door.

So in addition to understanding the design detail differences between the premium fiberglass door and the standard fiberglass door, know that you have many design options for layout, for glass, for decorative glass.  And also, please be aware that Therma-Tru designs and manufactures its own glass for each of its door products, and that’s unique for the fiberglass door industry.

If authentic looks is the most important thing to you, the premium fiberglass door is such a good choice.  If cost or budget is impacting your project or your job, you may want to consider the Smooth Star or the Fiber Classic as a great option too.