Your doors have to a lot to do, especially exterior doors. Essentially, they need to prevent things you want to retain from escaping, and keep things that you don't want out of your home, all while allowing you to come and go as you please. "Things" that might be as small as molecules of hot air, or as large as a burglar. That’s a tall order for a simple rectangle on hinges! Making sure your door is energy efficient will help keep energy where you want it to be.
Since any door, particularly a front entry door, is a major design element of a home; it must be aesthetically pleasing as well as functional and efficient.
Doors that are part of a well built house must be especially good at creating a seal between the outside and inside. A large part of energy conservation is about reducing heat (or cold) exchange with the outdoors. Doors and windows are the areas of greatest heat loss in almost all houses. Sustainable building practices include the entire life-cycle of each part. A green home door should ideally be produced in an ecologically sound way and should be recyclable.
Let’s look at energy-efficiency . A good exterior door will fit tightly and use the best available weather-stripping technology. Most energy-efficient doors are made of fiberglass or wood-clad steel, or painted steel, and filled with a core of polyurethane foam. These doors are typically sealed with a magnetic strip like that on a refrigerator and they need no further weatherstripping if they are well-installed. They are about five times as insulating and energy-efficient than wooden doors . To "up" the green factor, look for doors that contain recycled steel.
Your doors represent an invitation into your home—they are part of the fabric of your house that you and your visitors will encounter on a daily basis. Doors deserve a great amount of your green attention.
You can also buy both interior and exterior fiberboard doors molded from up to 100% recycled wood fibers. These products have greater insulating values and energy-efficiency than wood and are a good use of lumber mill waste products. Some new wooden doors are also made from recycled lumber, often of woods no longer readily available.
Avoid purchasing doors made with tropical wood veneers like luan and mahogany, which are often harvested in a non-sustainable manner. Domestic wood veneers such as cherry and oak provide as greener options.
