Getting the material to the door
An armoured door set is a heavy, rigid assembly that does not come apart to turn a corner. In the village it has to be carried from the nearest parking space, through the porte des Tines or the porte des Migraniers, up a calade, then round a turning staircase onto a landing where two people barely fit. The survey comes before the order — a tape measure taken up the climb saves a delivery that leaves again fully loaded.
Overlay armouring gets round part of that: the folded steel sheet, the angle irons and the lock arrive as separate pieces and are assembled in place. On an old solid timber leaf that is frequently the only workable answer, provided the frame is sound and properly bedded into the stone. The weight then spreads over several trips instead of one.
Outward appearance comes into it too. A door visible from a lane in old Biot, or from the arcades, is not treated like a flat door closed off inside a corridor. The finish, the colour and the overhang of the steel are discussed beforehand, with the co-ownership where there is one.
The substrate decides more than the product
In the plain the question shifts to what receives the fixings. Many recent flats at Les Clausonnes have dry-lined partitions and thin metal frames: an angle iron screwed into plasterboard will not take the load of a crowbar, whatever the thickness of the steel it carries. The reveal is probed before a price is given, never after the door has come off.
In the village the problem is the opposite. Stone holds, but it is irregular: the reveal is out of square, the old frame has moved, and the fixings are made good point by point. That work, invisible once the door is hung, is what makes the difference on the day somebody sets about it.
Armoured door sets are compared through A2P BP certification, in three levels corresponding to five, ten and fifteen minutes of resistance in standardised testing. It applies to the assembly as tested: change the lock on a certified set and it falls away, and a badly bedded installation cancels the benefit just as surely. The test report should be handed to you with the fitting sheet. On a Clausonnes flat door as on a village leaf, the fitting is what decides.
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 Biot.