Reinforcing the existing door, or fitting a complete set
Reinforcement keeps your door: a folded steel sheet over the leaf, angle sections on the frame, a multipoint lock, anti-lift pins. On the standardised flat doors of the Val Fleuri blocks it is the solution that adapts most easily, provided the original frame is still sound and properly fixed. That frame is checked by tapping along its full height, before steel is even discussed.
A security door set replaces everything — leaf, frame, lock, hinges — and its resistance no longer depends on what was there before. At Cros-de-Cagnes, on terraced houses whose frames have taken damp for decades facing the spray, it is often the only choice that really holds. A swollen frame shows itself in the play varying from the top of the leaf to the bottom.
At Haut-de-Cagnes the question turns physical before it turns technical. A door set goes up by hand along the montée de la Bourgade and the village steps: its weight and bulk are part of the decision, and leaves out of standard sizes nearly always mean having one made to measure.
What the lane and the rule book add to the project
Around the Château Grimaldi the frontage stops being a purely private matter. As soon as a door can be seen from the lane, replacing it may call for a prior works declaration and go before the Architecte des Bâtiments de France, the state heritage architect: colour, facing, visible ironmongery. The town planning department answers address by address, and a door onto an inner courtyard raises different questions from one giving onto the montée.
In a condominium the rule book sometimes requires the landing doors to match. In the avenue Renoir residences that steers the finish rather than the structure: the facing is chosen to resemble the neighbouring doors, and the building manager is told before the work rather than after it.
Lastly, reinforcement protects an opening, not a home. Strengthening the door of a house at the Cros whose french window onto the lane has neither shutter nor laminated glass moves the problem a metre sideways. Look first at where someone would go in if that door became the hardest point. A garden window, a cellar vent, a garage door: it all counts in the same calculation.
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 Cagnes-sur-Mer.