Composite doors in Trewoon, installed professionally.

Trewoon throws up a mix of housing stock, and that means a mix of door problems. Trewoon sits on the western edge of the clay country outside St Austell, and the housing reflects that mining and clay-works history — rows of terraces built for workers, later filled out with post-war bungalows on the newer streets. We've fitted into porches barely wide enough to swing a spirit level and onto wide Victorian openings that need a proper heavyweight frame either side.

Whatever the house, the job's the same underneath: strip the old frame back to brick, check the opening's square (it rarely is), pack and pin a new PVCu or timber-composite frame, then hang a solid GRP-skinned door with a foam core that won't warp, crack or fade the way old panel doors do after a few Cornish winters.

We measure on site, not off a photo, because Trewoon has enough variety in door width and cill height that guesswork costs someone a return visit. Most jobs are a single day: strip out, fit, seal, adjust the hinges and multipoint lock until it closes like it should, and take the rubbish away with us.

Trewoon's terraces often have front doors opening straight onto a narrow pavement, which limits how wide a canopy or porch surround can go — something we check before quoting rather than after delivery.

A composite door isn't just a thicker uPVC door with better marketing. The core is usually a high-density foam wrapped in GRP skins, sat inside a timber sub-frame, so it doesn't flex, drum, or feel hollow when you shut it. uPVC doors sag on their hinges after a few years and the woodgrain foil peels; timber doors need repainting and are prone to swelling in a wet spell, which round here is most of them.

Composite splits the difference: the look of a painted timber door, the maintenance of uPVC, and a lot more resistance to knocks, damp and UV bleaching. The trade-off is price — composite costs more upfront than a basic uPVC door — but we don't see many composite doors coming back to us with warped panels or failed seals, whereas we replace a fair few tired uPVC doors every year.

For a household deciding between the two, it usually comes down to how long you're planning on staying put. Anything past five years and the composite starts paying for itself in avoided repairs and a door that still looks the way it did when it went in.

Composite holds up well against the clay-country damp that still hangs around after a wet spell here, whereas we've seen timber doors on the older terraces swell shut by autumn most years.

Every composite door we fit is PAS24 tested and comes with a 3-star anti-snap cylinder as standard, not an optional extra. Anti-snap cylinders matter because the old Euro cylinder lock is the weak point burglars go for first — snap it in seconds with a pair of pliers and you're in. A 3-star cylinder is built to resist that, and paired with a multipoint lock (usually five or more points) and a reinforced frame, the door meets the security standard insurers and Building Control expect on a new external door.

If you're replacing a front or back door on an existing house, it needs to comply with Part L (thermal performance) and Part Q (security) of the Building Regulations, which is why we register every install through Certass rather than leave you to sort out a completion certificate yourself. That certificate matters if you ever sell — conveyancing solicitors ask for it, and not having one can hold up a sale while you scramble to get retrospective sign-off.

None of this is upselling. It's what a door has to do now, and it's less hassle for you than us fitting something cheaper and you finding out about the paperwork gap when you come to move.

A lot of the terrace fronts were altered at some point with a replacement frame that's slightly out of true, so the first job on site is usually squaring that up properly.

We fit from the Endurance range, which gives twenty colours from the expected (anthracite grey, black, white) to less common shades like chartwell green, agate grey and painswick — useful if you're trying to match a colour scheme rather than just pick 'a nice door'. Most houses we visit end up going for anthracite or a dark grey on the outside with white or grey on the inside face, since composite doors are usually dual-coloured at no extra cost.

Glazing options run from fully solid (no glass at all, good for a back door or anywhere privacy matters) through to decorative glazed panels — obscured, leaded, or a coloured glass unit that throws a bit of light into a hallway without anyone seeing in. Older cottages tend to suit a simpler panel design; newer estate houses can carry a busier glazed style without looking out of place.

Hardware — handles, letterplates, knockers — comes in chrome, black, gold and a few brushed finishes, and it's worth picking these at the same time as the door colour rather than as an afterthought, because some finishes clash more than you'd think once they're on the house rather than in a brochure.

Bungalow porches on the newer streets tend to be wider and better sheltered, which gives more scope for a fully glazed design without worrying about weather getting straight at the glass.

We turn up with dust sheets, because knocking an old frame out is messier than people expect — old mastic, bits of render, sometimes a chunk of brick that decided to come away with the frame. The old door and frame come out, the opening gets cleaned up and checked for square and level, and any making-good to brickwork or plaster gets done before the new frame goes in.

The new frame is packed, fixed and sealed, the door is hung, and then we spend longer than people expect on adjustment — hinges, keeps, the compression on the seals — because a composite door that isn't adjusted properly will either drag on the cill or let a draught through the top corner, and neither is acceptable on a job we're guaranteeing for ten years.

Most single door jobs are done in a day, start to finish, including making good internally around the frame with silicone or trim. If there's brickwork to rebuild around a widened opening, or a porch to work around, we'll say so on the quote rather than let it be a surprise on the day.

We've fitted enough doors along Tregonissey Road and the surrounding streets to know which house types need extra packing at the cill and which don't.

Every door and frame we fit carries a 10-year guarantee covering the manufacture of the door itself — the GRP skins, the foam core, the frame — plus our own workmanship on the install. If a lock mechanism sticks, a hinge needs adjusting, or a seal isn't compressing right, that's covered, and it's a phone call rather than a form.

In practice the calls we get after the first year are mostly adjustment — houses settle, timber sub-frames move slightly with the seasons, and a five-minute hinge tweak sorts most of it. We'd rather come back for that under guarantee than have someone living with a door that doesn't close properly because they assumed it was normal wear.

We're Certass registered, which means the install is certified for Building Regulations compliance without you needing a separate Building Control application, and you get the paperwork to prove it if you ever need it for a house sale.

Aftercare calls from Trewoon are mostly the same as anywhere — a hinge bedding in during the first winter — nothing that points to anything unusual about the local housing.

We measure on site rather than quote blind, because door openings vary more than people think and a quote based on a phone description usually needs revising anyway. A visit takes fifteen to twenty minutes — we measure the opening, talk through colour and glazing options, and give you a firm price before we leave, not a 'starting from' figure that changes later.

There's no obligation and no pressure to book on the spot. Most people want to think about colour choice or check with whoever else lives in the house, and that's fine — the quote holds for a reasonable period while you decide.

If you already know roughly what you want — colour, glazed or solid, chrome or black hardware — tell us when you get in touch and we'll come prepared with samples rather than a blank form.

Booking a quote here is no different from anywhere else we cover — a short visit, a firm price, and no pressure while you decide.