Eye watering cost of Oak

[ProDave]

Our house has oak flooring, and oak kitchen worktop.  I have just bought oak doors throughout, they were expensive enough as SWMBO saw some nice ones.

 

So it stands to reason, nice oak doors will go into nice oak door liners won't they?

 

The issue is compounded by the fact most of the doors will be fitting into 180mm wide walls (load bearing internal walls)  So the plan was to make the door liners on site, using 20*70 and 20* 120 planed white oak  butted together with the door stop covering the joint. Obviously planed to exact size on site.

 

Then I started getting prices.  For 10 doors, mostly single, but 2 double pairs, I will need 21  2.1 metre lengths of each, plus a much smaller section for the door stop.

 

Jewaons £602 plus VAT

TP can't get any "up here"

Wood Stock  £633 plus VAT

 

I have tried a number of on line suppliers including Brisish Hardwoods, and they are all coming out even higher.

 

To put this into perspective, this is going to cost about half the price of expensive doors, just to make the frames for them to go in.  Or put it another way I could have bought cheap oak doors for less than the cost of making the frames.

 

What am I doing wrong?  What alternatives are there?

 

Now thinking if you can get oak veneered wood in similar sizes?  For each length only 2 "good" faces are needed, one face and 1 edge, and perhaps still solid oak for the door stop?  The only issue is where the hinges and door locks are cut in would have to be done very well.

 

Any thoughts please? I have to get this cost down, it is just silly at the moment.

[Jeremy Harris]

I'm afraid I think the prices you have are about as good as you're going to get.  I was a bit shocked at the high cost of oak door linings, especially when compared to the cost of the oak doors.  We bought all ours from Door Deals( https://www.doordeals.co.uk/products/door-frames-and-mouldings/internal-door-frames.aspx ), but they aren't likely to be any cheaper for you, due to your location and the higher delivery charges, I think.

[ProDave]

The joiner will be visiting one night this week and I will see what he says.

 

One "off the wall" idea is use the oak flooring we have.  That is 20mm thick engineered oak and 190mm wide so would do the whole width in one. I have some left over and could easily get some more if needed for a lot less than the cost of planed solid oak.

 

The only issue is at the edges, there is only 6mm of oak as the top oak layer is 6mm thick. As long as the architrave covered all the soft wood structure and only left that 6mm showing it might work?  I must go and plane and sand an offcut to size and see what it would look like.

 

Anyone come across stock sized oak veneer that might work?

[Jeremy Harris]

Just measured ours, and I set the edge of the architrave back 5mm from the face of the lining, so your 6mm top layer should end up just behind the architrave if you do the same.

[Russell griffiths]

As Jeremy said Norma setback for architrave is about 5 mm, so flooring should work. 

[ProDave]

In the time since my past reply, I have taken a short offcut and planed both sides to get the correct width and it might work. The issue would be gerring the finish right.  The top surface is pre treated and laquered with a matt finish. I would need to find something to treat the exposed planed and sanded edges to be a reasonable match.

 

This will be one possible solution that I will offer when the joiner is here.

 

I have enough left over floor boards to do almost half what I need, and would need to buy another 2, possibly 3 packs of that to finish off, which would be considerably cheaper.  I would then just need to buy the small section oak for the door stops.

[Russell griffiths]

Can you sand the flooring down and re, coat when all built in place. 

[ProDave]

9 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Can you sand the flooring down and re, coat when all built in place. 

Possibly, again something to try on a small offcut to see how deep the original coating goes and how much would be left.

[ProDave]

A flaw in this plan, is the floor boards are only 1900mm long and the doors 2040mm tall, so each side of the door frames would need a joint. The boards do have tongue and groove joints at the ends but it would make it stand out as what it is.

[Russell griffiths]

Joint near the floor. 

[Ed Davies]

Do you have skirting boards? Could you arrange the join to be at the bottom level with the top of the skirting boards so they line up. It'd look odd to people who think about it but visually it'd make it unnoticeable, I think.

[ProDave]

32 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

Joint near the floor. 

That would probably be least noticeable.

 

[ProDave]

36 minutes ago, Ed Davies said:

Do you have skirting boards? Could you arrange the join to be at the bottom level with the top of the skirting boards so they line up. It'd look odd to people who think about it but visually it'd make it unnoticeable, I think.

2040 door plus a gap at top and bottom probably means 2060 door frame.  Boards are 1900 long, so joint would be 160 above the floor.. Howdens oak veneer skirting which is probably what I will use is 120mm, so can't make the joint line up.

[Triassic]

The last renovation I did I used some left over solid oak floorboards cut to size and planed up. You might be able to buy a few length of someone’s leftovers cheap, off eBay or the like.

[recoveringbuilder]

Pity it’s not skirting you’re looking for we have a good few lengths left could have had a trip down ?

[ProDave]

24 minutes ago, Christine Walker said:

Pity it’s not skirting you’re looking for we have a good few lengths left could have had a trip down ?

Don't throw it out. I will still need that, but it is not as high on my list, i.e will wait until later more easily than door frames.  We will be making at least 2 trips down south this year so there may be a deal to do.

[Miek]

What about oak veneered birch ply? You could get an 18mm board for about £80 ish. Lovely to work with is birch ply. You could rip the lengths out of the sheet and hide the ply edge with the architrave . Not sure if you could find a 22mm thick board but its possibly available. ( that's about door lining thickness is it not?) 

Edited February 18, 2019 by Miek

[ProDave]

2 minutes ago, Miek said:

What about oak veneered birch ply? You could get an 18mm board for about £80 ish. Lovely to work with is birch ply. You could rip the lengths out of the sheet and hide the ply edge with the architrave . Not sure if you could find a 22mm thick board but its possibly available. ( that's about door lining thickness is it not?) 

That poses the question what to to at the edges? that pesky 5mm or so that will show, the bit the architrave does not cover?

[Miek]

6 minutes ago, ProDave said:

That poses the question what to to at the edges? that pesky 5mm or so that will show, the bit the architrave does not cover?

You must be able to get some oak edging and glue it on, but that makes the process a little more involved. Not sure what tools you have access to but you could rip some thin pieces from larger stock easy peasy with a table saw. 

[Miek]

Or don't have a 5mm gap and flush mount the architrave? 

 

 

[Russell griffiths]

20 minutes ago, Miek said:

Or don't have a 5mm gap and flush mount the architrave? 

 

 

No don’t do it, it will look shite. 

[Roundtuit]

I didn't see it mentioned, but are you using oak architrave, or painted? If it's painted, forget the oak door linings and paint softwood to match; it will visually 'frame' your quality doors better, and you'll never give it a second thought once they're in.

[ProDave]

23 minutes ago, Roundtuit said:

I didn't see it mentioned, but are you using oak architrave, or painted? If it's painted, forget the oak door linings and paint softwood to match; it will visually 'frame' your quality doors better, and you'll never give it a second thought once they're in.

Architraves and skirting will probably be Howdens Oak veneer.

[Roundtuit]

Ah; maybe not an alternative you want to consider then! I used Howdens Burford contemporary primed mdf skirting (99p/m) and architrave (79p/m), and would probably do the same again even if the budget was more flexible. Doors look great; I spent the saving on beer! ?

[Crofter]

You need the 5mm offset on the architrave as somewhere for the hinges to sit. They cold be flush on the side that the door opens away from, though.

 

I went through all of this and decided it would be better in every way to just go for MDF and paint it. Quicker, easier, cheaper, but obviously if SWMBO wants the all wood look then not an option...