Commercial Wooden Doors

A solid-core door built to a commercial standard and hung, in almost every case, in a hollow metal frame. The core is particleboard, staved lumber or mineral board; the faces are wood veneer or plastic laminate; and the edges are hardwood or rated composite so the door holds hardware. What separates it from a residential interior door is the core, the hardware reinforcement and the fact that it is made to the opening rather than bought off a shelf.

Hollow-core doors have a cardboard honeycomb inside and belong in houses. A commercial solid-core door has a continuous core — particleboard, staved lumber or mineral — which gives it mass, stiffness, sound attenuation and something for hinges and locks to hold. Hollow core in a commercial corridor fails quickly: the hardware works loose, the faces dent, and it does nothing for noise.

Yes — with a mineral core, rated edges and a labelled steel frame, wood doors are certified at 20, 45, 60 and 90 minutes. It is how hotels, hospitals and offices meet a rating without putting a steel door in a finished corridor. The details are on our wood fire-rated doors page.

Decades, if the frame and the hardware are right. What usually ends a commercial wood door early is not the wood: it is a closer slamming it into the frame, hinges pulling out of an unreinforced edge, or moisture at the bottom rail in an entrance vestibule. Faces can be refinished, edges repaired and hardware upgraded — replacing a whole floor of doors is rarely the first answer.

Often, and it is a fraction of the cost. Veneer faces can be sanded and refinished where the veneer thickness allows, damaged edges repaired, and hardware and closers replaced. Where refinishing does not work is on doors whose veneer has been sanded before, delaminated faces, and water-damaged bottom rails — and on rated doors, where any repair has to stay within the listing.

Maple, birch, oak, walnut, cherry and mahogany cover most commercial work, in plain-sliced, quarter-cut or rotary cuts, with book, slip or random matching. Plastic laminate is the alternative where durability matters more than grain — hospitals, schools and back-of-house corridors — and it is far easier to keep looking new.

In commercial buildings, nearly always. A hollow metal frame is the standard partner for a commercial wood door: it holds its shape, takes the hinge and strike reinforcement, and is what a rated assembly is listed with. That is why our wood doors and our steel frames are quoted together — see steel door frames.

If the wooden door is a standard size, it takes 1–2 weeks to prepare the hardware and install it. If the door is a custom size or needs specific hardware, it can take 8–12 weeks to produce it and source the hardware. Then 1–2 weeks to schedule the job and install them, depending on the size of the project. Factory-finished, matched-veneer and rated doors sit at the longer end of that, because the finishing and the certification are part of the fabrication. Once the doors are here, a single opening is usually a day's work, and a full building of suite or classroom doors is phased over several weeks.