In a house, the attached garage decides everything
The most widespread layout on Pessac's estates combines a front door onto the street, an attached garage and a connecting door between the two. Reinforcing the front door without looking at that internal door simply moves the problem: the up-and-over or sectional door does not offer the same resistance, and behind it sits a lightweight piece of joinery designed to separate two rooms, not to protect a home. The useful line of thinking is to treat the whole chain rather than strengthen one isolated link.
What the door is fixed to then determines what can be done. Many of the town's houses date from the decades of suburban expansion and have timber door frames set into blockwork or brick. The assessment therefore covers what holds the door as much as the door itself: the condition of the frame, the quality of the fixings, and the presence of a glazed fanlight or a fixed side panel, two features that have to be dealt with at the same time as the door leaf, otherwise the reinforcement is simply bypassed.
Landing door in a residential block, or protected house: check before ordering
Around the Saige and Cap de Bos stops, as in the town centre, recent buildings are delivered with landing doors already fitted with multipoint locks, sometimes shielded multipoint locks. Reinforcement there takes a different form: it bears more on the cylinder and its protection than on the structure of the door leaf, and it has to work within the co-ownership rules, which sometimes require a uniform appearance across the landing. The building managing agent (syndic) is the person to approach before committing to anything.
The cité Frugès-Le Corbusier falls under a different regime again. These houses are World Heritage listed and their external appearance is protected: a visible reinforcement plate or an off-the-shelf certified security door set is hard to envisage there without first examining the applicable rules. The way to proceed is to approach the town's planning department with the exact address, then have a detailed quote drawn up on that basis, and not the other way round, which spares a good many abandoned projects.
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 Pessac.