Door Installation Cost Calculator

It depends entirely on which kind of door. Interior doors run $350 to $800 each and storm doors $300 to $600. Exterior doors are a different job: steel $1,275, fiberglass $1,850, a sliding patio door $2,000, a French pair $2,725 and solid wood $2,975. Two fiberglass exterior doors together come to about $3,450, or $1,725 each. The calculator above prices exterior doors, so if you are replacing hallway doors the figure here is four or five times too high.

Because an exterior door is a hole in the building envelope at its lowest point. It needs a sill pan to drain water back outside, flashing tied into the house wrap and siding, a weather seal on three sides, an adjustable threshold, a lockset and deadbolt with the strike anchored into framing, and it has to be plumb and square to a tolerance an interior door does not — because a door that binds or shows daylight is a draft and a water path. That is about five hours of work against one and a half, on a unit costing four times as much.

A little, but less than most people expect. One fiberglass door is $1,850, two are $1,725 each, three $1,683 and four $1,663 — about 10% from the first to the fourth, with nearly all of it in the first step. Only the setup, floor protection and haul-away happen once; everything else is per door, and the unit itself is most of the cost. So if you need two, do them together — but if you need one, there is no reason to wait and accumulate a second.

About five hours for an exterior door into a sound existing opening, including removal, the sill pan, dry fitting, shimming to plumb, fastening, foaming, flashing, the threshold seal, the lockset and the trim. A French pair takes nearer six because the two leaves have to align with each other as well as the frame, and a slider five because the track must be shimmed dead level. An interior door is nearer an hour and a half. Resizing the opening or finding rot turns any of them into a full day.

Pre-hung on an exterior door, almost always — the old frame is usually the part the weather has aged worst, and a slab leaves the old sill, jamb and weather seal in place, which is most of what you were trying to fix. On an interior door a slab is more often reasonable, since the frame has had nothing working on it. Pre-hung means the door arrives already hung in a new frame with hinges mortised, sill attached and weatherstripping fitted.

About 90% on top of the door, so a fiberglass door into a new opening is near $3,525 rather than $1,850. The work is a header sized for the span, temporary support while it goes in, then siding, flashing, insulation, drywall and trim to make the wall good again. On a load-bearing wall it is a structural decision rather than a carpentry one, so ask who sized the header. Widening an existing opening is cheaper at about 35%, since the framing is altered rather than created.

Often not for a like-for-like replacement in an existing opening, but frequently yes once the size changes or a new opening is cut, and the rules vary by jurisdiction. Permits commonly run $50 to $150. Worth asking about separately is removal and disposal of the old door, which many installers bill at $100 to $500 rather than including — it is one of the commonest additions after the fact.

The sill pan, at $35 to $55 — the molded tray under the sill that drains water back outside, which nobody will ever see again once the door is in, which is exactly why it gets skipped. After that: the lockset, exterior brick molding and interior casing, painting or finishing on a primed unit, removal and disposal of the old door, and any rate for dealing with rot. Ask for each as a line, particularly the rot rate — if nobody will give you one, that tells you how the day will go.

Fiberglass for most situations. It does not dent, rust, rot or warp, holds paint far longer than steel, insulates best of the three, and takes a convincing woodgrain finish — for about $575 more installed than steel. Steel makes sense on a side door, a garage-to-house door or a rental where budget decides, bearing in mind a dent is permanent. Solid wood looks the best and needs a porch roof over it; unsheltered, it will cup and check and need refinishing every few years.

A slider if swing space is tight, which it usually is — a slider needs none, and it is the cheaper of the two at about $2,000 against $2,725 for a French pair. A French pair gives a much wider clear opening when both leaves are open and looks better closed, but it needs the floor space to swing into and it is the fussier install, since the two leaves have to align with each other as well as with the frame. Both come off the same calculator above.

Long screws into the stud behind the strike plate, or a reinforced strike box. Most forced entries go through the jamb rather than the door — the latch tears the strike plate out of trim held by short screws — so this is more effective than a better lock on an unreinforced frame, and it costs almost nothing. Ask whether the installer does it as standard; many do not.