Getting a door into the oval
A full armoured door set is heavy and bulky. Between the Portail Levis and rue Saint-Lambert there is no lorry access and no furniture hoist: the door goes under a vault, up a staircase, and sometimes around a right-angle turn. The route is measured before anything is ordered, and it often points towards a reinforcement kit, which goes up piece by piece.
The compensation is the anchorage. The frame is bedded into stone masonry that takes the load far better than a plasterboard lining, provided the fitting is entrusted to someone who knows how to work that material. A good share of the real resistance is decided there, not on the manufacturer's data sheet. Old Vence stonework rewards a fitter who takes the time to find something solid to bite into.
Appearance is the third factor. A door visible from an old-town lane or from place du Peyra may require a prior declaration and, in a protected setting, the opinion of the Architecte des Bâtiments de France. Timber facings exist that let a reinforcement sit within an old façade; the consent, though, is asked for before the work rather than after it.
Outside the walls, the weak link is not the front door
In the hillside villas the dimensions are standard and the masonry backing sound: fitting presents no particular difficulty. The real question lies elsewhere. A reinforced entrance achieves nothing if the living-room French windows open onto a dry-stone terrace invisible from the lane, or if the garage connects straight through into the house.
So every opening gets looked at before anything is chosen: service door, the way in from the pool, garden gate, plant room at the bottom of the plot. In Vence, where the ground falls away and vegetation screens everything, the rear elevation is almost always less overlooked than the one facing the road. On the terraced plots below the baous, a ladder left beside the pool shortens the climb considerably.
Finally, armouring does not replace habits. Not announcing an absence, having the post collected, letting the house look lived in through the closed months: on the tracks below the baous, where nobody passes by chance, a neighbour who opens the shutters is worth several extra locking points.
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 Vence.