Interior and Exterior Doors: What's What?

Whether you're remodeling or looking to purchase a new home or condo, doing some research on interior and exterior door styles will only stand to benefit the long life of your home. Installing new exterior doors will almost always improve the insulation of your home. Replacing old ones - or installing quality new ones - will be a good investment, resulting in lower heating and cooling costs. If your home is new, consider installing the most energy efficient doors you can.

Most common types of exterior doors have a steel outer layer with a foam insulation core. Usually exterior doors have a magnetic strip as weather stripping. Glass or patio exterior doors lose heat and cool air much faster than other types of doors because glass is a poor insulator. Models with more than one layer of glass or coated glass are good investments, especially in extreme climates. Swinging doors offer a much tighter seal than sliding doors and with a sliding glass door, air leaks are nearly impossible to prevent. Replacing the weather stripping around a sliding door is the only way to make them more energy efficient.

Interior doors can change your home

There is an array of interior door styles, too. Standard interior doors come as either a slab or a prehung door unit. Slab doors are a good choice if you are aiming to replace a door, and these doors usually do not include a frame. Once the old door is off its hinges, the new door can be placed. Hardware and other accessories, like doorknobs and locks, are often sold separately. Prehung doors are good if you need a new door and door frame. The door comes pre-attached to the frame and hinges, and can be installed after the existing door and frame are removed. Again, hardware is usually sold separately.

Most interior doors come in one of a few materials: solid wood, which looks beautiful and is available in an array of colors and styles; solid core doors, which give the appearance of real wood at a more affordable price point and have a solid wood core surrounded by a textured finish; and hollow core doors, which are constructed with wood boards to make up the outside of the door and have honeycomb or a gridwork core inside.