Carrying a door set up inside the ramparts
An armoured door set is a complete assembly — leaf, frame, lock, hinges — designed and tested as one unit. It still has to reach the landing. In the narrow streets of Vieil Antibes you unload at a distance, carry it up a steep staircase by hand, and bulk in a cramped stairwell becomes a selection criterion alongside performance.
Old town doors are almost always non-standard: made to measure is the rule there rather than the exception. In exchange, the frame is bedded into stone masonry that holds fixings well, provided the fitting is done by someone who knows how to work that material. Every dimension is taken on site, height, width and out-of-plumb included.
Retrofit armouring keeps your door and strengthens it: a folded steel sheet over the leaf, angle irons on the frame, a multipoint lock, anti-lift pins. It is often the only workable option when the staircase of a place Nationale building rules out a complete set. The frame then has to be sound: on rotten timber the fixings let go long before the steel does.
Consent, the building manager and the rest of the home
The historic core of Antibes, between the ramparts and the château Grimaldi, lies in an area where the outward appearance of a street-facing door is not a free choice. A prior works declaration and the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France may be required. The town's planning department will say what applies at your address.
At Les Semboules, La Fontonne and in the seafront blocks the constraint is different: ordinary sizes, sound masonry, but co-ownership rules that often govern the look of doors opening onto a shared landing. Read them before ordering, and ask the building manager if the finish you want changes the look of the landing. Some buildings impose one colour or one handle throughout the stairwell.
And reinforcement protects one opening, not a home. Strengthening the door of a ground-floor flat whose French window gives onto a courtyard, or of a Cap villa whose beach access stays basic, shifts attention rather than removing it. Consistency across the openings counts for more than the rating of any single point.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our door reinforcement page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Antibes.