Questions Clients Ask Before Starting

Most of the calls we take in a week start the same way. Someone has a set of plans, a rough opening that does not match the schedule, or a contractor who wants the door frames on site before the screed is dry. The questions that follow are rarely about style. They are about sequence, sizing and who carries the risk when something arrives wrong.

Here are the ones that come up again and again, along with the answers we usually give.

"Can I order the doors before the openings are built?"

You can, but you need to be sure about the finished opening size, not the brickwork gap. A 813mm door needs a frame that sits inside a rough opening of roughly 900mm wide and 2100mm high, and that allowance changes once plaster and tiles go on. If the walls are still being squared, wait. Frames cut to a measurement taken too early are the single most common reason a delivery gets sent back.

"Meranti, oak veneer or aluminium?"

Meranti takes paint and stain evenly and holds a hinge screw for decades, which is why it stays the default for interior doors in Gauteng. Oak veneer looks sharper on a wide stile and suits a clear finish, but it dents more easily in a busy hallway. Aluminium belongs on exterior entrances in coastal or high-rainfall areas, where a timber leaf would swell and need re-sealing every year.

"When should the frames go in relative to tiling and painting?"

Frames first, then screed and tiles, then paint. Hanging a door before the floor finish is down usually means trimming the bottom later, and trimming a sealed door is a job nobody enjoys. Pivot units are stricter still: the pivot hardware sets the threshold height, so the rough opening has to be marked out before the floor goes down.

"What do you need from me to quote?"

A door schedule with opening sizes, leaf thickness, finish and hardware preference gets you a written quote the same week. For townhouse developments we work from the architect's schedule and group the order by unit so deliveries match the building programme. If you are fitting yourself, tell us that up front and we will include fitting notes and care instructions with the order.