Entrance doors to the bathhouse: plastic, wood, metal entrance doors for a bathhouse from the street - tips on which one to install, photos, videos

Visiting the bathhouse has been a favorite pastime of the Russian people since ancient times. In the bathhouse you can improve your health, relax your soul and body and have fun with your family or friends. A distinctive feature of the bathhouse is its very special climatic conditions. To maintain them, you need not only to properly build walls, make ventilation, windows, but also install a good entrance door.

What size bath door should I install?

Traditionally, bathhouse doors are made of wood, a material that can expand or contract depending on the level of humidity and temperature in the room. They usually open outward - this is very important for safety. A threshold 10-15 cm high must be made under the door, and a small gap of 5-7 cm is left for steam to escape. Therefore, the structure cannot be too high. It shouldn’t be wide either, otherwise the heat will go nowhere. The most optimal door dimensions for a bathhouse are 180*65 cm plus or minus 5-10 cm. At the same time, the entrance structures and door frames are made more massive than those leading to the steam room or other rooms. In this way, maximum heat retention is achieved.

It should be noted that modern doors measuring more than 2 meters high and 80-100 cm wide should not be chosen for a bathhouse. They are not suitable for her. Everything in the bath should be small - windows, steam room, doors and other details. This is the only way to save the heat emanating from the stove and enjoy full water procedures. However, there is no need to make the doors too low either. The tallest member of the family should enter the bathhouse only with his head bowed, and not bent double.

Where and what kind of door is better to put

Entrance to the bathhouse

Even the cleanest people do not visit it every day. And even more so, mass movement through the entrance opening is not expected. Even if some of the guests experience some inconvenience, it does not matter. Based on similar considerations, when choosing a sauna door size, you should pay attention, first of all, to the height of the structure. It should exceed the height of the tallest household member by about 100 mm.

Steam room

Regardless of the layout of the bathhouse, this room is required. It is in it that it is necessary to maintain optimal temperature conditions. In particular, by reducing heat loss. The size of the door to the steam room is chosen based on the ease of use - as a rule, it is the smallest installed in bathhouses. And nothing bad will happen if someone has to bow their head or “squeeze sideways.”

Such a door will ensure good heat retention, and you will not need to spend extra energy resources to switch the boiler (furnace) to a higher mode to achieve a high temperature.

But for other premises there are no strict requirements for the choice of doors. Here you should take into account the general design of the room, its purpose, dimensions and a number of other parameters well known to designers. But sizes in this case fade into the background.

Pros of installation

Plastic structures are easily installed in the wooden walls of a bathhouse.
PVC is not susceptible to rotting or fungal attack.
Plastic doors with glazing allow light into the steam room, which has a beneficial effect on the microclimate.
Large selection of door colors. In addition to classic white, you can choose to decorate with wood of different varieties and shades. There are two technologies for changing color - applying a color film over the profile, or introducing pigment into PVC during production. In this case, the entire profile array is painted, but the color is uniform without simulating wood texture.
If a design with sandwich panels is chosen, the panels can be easily changed if necessary.
Products using a plastic profile with 5 or more chambers retain heat well, which is important for steam rooms.
PVC does not deform from moisture.

What manufacturing options are there?

The quality and service life of the door block depend on the material from which the door block is made. Different raw materials are selected for different purposes.

Tree

Traditionally, wood was used in baths. The floor, walls, ceiling are all wooden, doors too. You may be given several options:

Linden. A universal material, used to create doors of any type. The main advantages are low price, pleasant aroma, does not rot. A very good choice.
Aspen. The wood does not swell, does not heat up, and is suitable for decorating a washing room - it is used for finishing floors, ceilings, walls, and doors. The price of solid aspen is low, it is easy to process, which has a positive effect on the cost.
Pine. The low price is explained by the wide growing area and ease of processing. Like all coniferous plants, pine smells good and does not rot. Heats up quickly - so this is a bad choice for those who like high temperatures (above 65 degrees). The ideal temperature is 45-50 degrees.
Larch. Solid larch will decorate the steam room - it is recognizable due to its texture and pattern, which only becomes more expressive under varnish. Since larch is a coniferous plant, it produces phytoncides that kill harmful microorganisms and bacteria.
Oak. Expensive, durable, weighs a lot, looks solid. Suitable if you want to impress guests. The only negative is that it cracks when overheated, which makes wood an unsuitable option for a steam room.

Wood is used for entrances to interior rooms. An array is taken - this reduces the likelihood of the slightest cracks and joints appearing. It is recommended to use durum varieties. Choose a water-based, non-toxic varnish.

Plastic

Plastic doors are often used at the entrance. They retain heat well, do not deform from cold, and fungus does not form on them.

Plastic is a poor material for rooms. This is an artificial material that, when exposed to heat, releases toxic substances and becomes deformed.

Metal

Metal doors are ideal as entrance doors. There is no need to care for them - the metal is not subject to mechanical damage and is resistant to mold and mildew. Thanks to the thermal insulation lining, it does not release heat and does not allow cold to penetrate inside.

Metal bath doors are not used for rooms because they have high thermal conductivity, heat up quickly, and are easy to get burned on. Also, when humidity is high, condensation forms, so the metal rusts.

Glass

A very stylish option - 8 mm thick tempered glass. The main advantages are appearance, heat resistance (withstands up to 300˚C), variety of decor. There are frosted glass designs, glossy, patterned, transparent, of any color. Glass is easy to clean, safe, and has low thermal conductivity.

The lower part of the glass sheet is shorter according to manufacturing standards, which allows air to circulate. This is important in a sauna, but unacceptable for a bath. Therefore, it is recommended to leave glass doors for the sauna, and use wooden or combined doors in the steam room.

Combined

They are made of wood, glass is used for decoration - decorated inserts, windows. The combined door combines traditional and modern visions of the bathhouse, which makes it more attractive from a design point of view.

Dimensions of doors for steam rooms

The doors for the steam room in the bathhouse are usually made lower than the entrance doors. This is due to the fact that in this room, under the ceiling, when heated, steam should accumulate in a layer of at least 80 cm. Therefore, to determine the height of the structure, you need to subtract this number from the general parameter. For example, with a ceiling height of 240 cm, it will be approximately 160 cm. The width of the opening can be anything, it all depends on the wishes of the owner. If we talk about standards, then it is usually 60-75 cm. It is worth noting that the indicated numbers are only approximate, it is not at all necessary to adhere to them.

Requirements for structures

Requirements:

resistance to constant temperature changes and changes in humidity levels;
environmental friendliness of the material;
resistance to mold and mildew;
simple, convenient installation;
safety of the structure for bathhouse visitors.

PVC products are more often used for installation in a bathhouse. These are complex products that consist of a frame, sandwich panels, fittings and double-glazed windows. There is a metal profile inside the structure that gives it rigidity.

The profile has a cellular structure, which allows the structure to retain heat better. Air chambers slow down the heating and cooling of the structure.

The energy efficiency of the door leaf depends on their quantity.

Standard profiles contain 3–5 air chambers.

Where can I buy

You can buy doors for a bathhouse or steam room from one of the companies that are presented in a separate section of our website.

Few of the owners of “acres” do not plan to build a bathhouse on the adjacent territory. One of the questions that interests many people is what size bath doors should they be guided by? After all, it is clear that ordinary standards are not suitable for them, since the problem of heat preservation in this case comes to the fore.

Hinges for heavy bath doors

The weight of the door is another important factor that determines both the quality and quantity of hinges and hinges used.

You have two options: either look for especially strong hinges for heavy bath doors, or simply increase the number of regular hinges , which also increases the strength and durability of the fastening.

In general, when purchasing, you should ask what maximum weight this or that model is designed for . Because there are also plastic fittings on sale that are suitable only for the lightest door panels.

On the other hand, there are companies that produce models specifically designed for heavy or frequently used doors. ASSA ABLOY Group Company as an example .

You should also know the principle of calculating the number of fittings:

Door weight (kg)	Number of hinges or canopies
up to 25	2
25-40	2-3
40-60	3
>60	4

ADVICE! When installing 3 loops, the middle one should not be located exactly in the middle, its place is 20-30 cm from the top one, and the top one should be installed 20 cm from the top edge of the fabric.

Dimensions of glass doors for a bath

Often, wooden doors are installed in a bathhouse - they are familiar, able to last a long time and withstand even very high temperatures and high humidity. But sometimes owners give preference to glass structures offered by various manufacturers specifically for baths. When choosing them, you should pay attention to all the parameters - the thickness of the glass, the type and model of the product, its heat resistance, the presence of mechanical damage (chips, scratches and cracks) and, of course, the dimensions.

The height of a glass door for a bath should be about 1.6 - 1.7 m, width - 60 - 80 cm. However, no one forbids the owner to install a structure of other sizes (for example, narrower or smaller). The most important thing here is to look at the thickness of the glass, it should be at least 8 mm. A thinner one will sooner or later burst or lead to deformation of the structure.

Types of doors and materials used

Wooden doors can have a solid or combined design. Blind canvases are in greatest demand on the market because they are characterized by higher deformation resistance (compared to combined models), impeccable build quality and resistance to thermal effects. Their only drawback is their high cost.

Combined doors with various inserts made of heat-resistant glass or plastic are distinguished by a wide variety of decorative options and unique aesthetic properties. Matte, translucent or embossed tempered glass is used for inserts into the canvas.

Bathhouse doors are made from various hardwoods, but linden is the most popular. Wooden doors made of linden have a number of advantages:

aesthetic appearance (beautiful texture and color palette);
high strength, resistance to wear and deformation;
when heated, the wood releases a pleasant healing aroma;
perfectly retain heat in rooms;
long service life;
when heated, they do not emit toxic substances;
resistance to wet steam, maximum temperatures and other unfavorable external factors;
Linden doors do not release resin when heated, do not deform or swell during prolonged intensive use.

In the production of doors for bathhouses, not only linden wood is used, but also other equally valuable species (ash, abashi and Canadian cedar). Their wood has similar performance characteristics, the only difference is the color palette and texture, as well as the cost of the door leaf.

Note!

In recent years, doors made of solid oak, which are heavy and have a long service life, have become very popular among bathhouse attendants, including those that are regularly exposed to adverse external factors. Pine wood is a more economical material for making door leaves; it is suitable for installing doors in the rest room and dressing room.

general information

Opinions on this issue vary. Some believe that, taking into account the quality of the products offered by manufacturers, first of all, samples with a high degree of insulation, there is no fundamental difference when choosing bathhouse doors in size; the main thing is that it is convenient to use.

Opponents of such a simplified approach believe that one should focus on the linear parameters of structures installed in openings, the optimality of which has been tested for centuries. The fact is that when you open a door, heat tends to come out, and the higher/wider the door leaf, the more of it will be lost. And the door to the steam room should be chosen especially carefully.

Recommended dimensions (in mm):

Height – 1650±150.
Width – 650±50.
Thickness – 85±15.

And if we compare the specified data with the standard parameters of commercially available sauna (bathhouse) doors, we can see that they are significantly less than 2000 and 1000 mm (height and width, respectively). And this is understandable, given their main purpose - maximum heat conservation. Indeed, in such buildings it is recommended to make even window openings small.

And if you decide to build a real Russian bathhouse, then it is still worth taking into account the experience of your ancestors and purchasing (making it yourself) structures (especially the door to the steam room) according to the above dimensions.

But there are a number of nuances here too. Even the smallest bathhouse has some kind of layout, that is, it has not one, but at least three rooms (including the vestibule). And at the entrance to each one a door is installed. And here the question arises: is it worth purchasing the same designs for all rooms? What do experts think about this?

Door block installation

Self-installation of doors in a home steam room will significantly save your own money. But you must have certain construction skills and follow the recommendations of specialists.

Performing markup

Before installing glass doors in a bathhouse, a design project is created, the parameters of the product are determined, and the area where it will be located is marked. This is the first and most important stage of construction work. Not only the period of operation of the facility, but also the preservation of heat in the steam room will depend on the accuracy of calculations and the quality of installation work.

To measure the door structure, you must use a construction tape. For installation of guide elements, an additional 150 mm is added to the results obtained.

After all the necessary measurements have been taken, markings are made in the wall opening where the door block is planned to be installed. On each side it is necessary to draw straight lines under a wooden batten or ruler. To check their horizontalness, it is recommended to use a building level.

When the marking of the opening is completed, it is necessary to insert the finished door structure into it and check the accuracy of its placement and, if necessary, adjust it.

There must be a technical gap of at least 50 mm between the door frame and the walls of the opening.

Fixing the guides

When installing glass door blocks in a bathhouse, you need to prepare 2 guide elements. To ensure the stability of the canvas when moving, it is recommended to install it on rollers.

There are several options for fixing the guide components, but they must be installed exactly horizontally. There should be no third-party objects in the path of the door when opening. When fixing guide parts on wood bases, self-tapping screws are used. When fixing them on concrete or brick bases, dowels are used. For them, holes must first be drilled in the concrete.

Experienced craftsmen do not recommend taking dowels from kits. Such connections are not of high quality. It is better to separately buy plastic dowels and screws with a slightly larger cross-section.

After preparing the fasteners, the carriages are assembled. It is necessary to tighten the mounting bolts in them and install them on the guide elements. However, it is not recommended to clamp them tightly. To secure the glass sheet as securely as possible, you can additionally use fastening brackets.

At the next stage, the transparent panel of the glass door to the bathhouse is installed. The product is inserted into the carriage of the upper guide element. The product must be inserted into the grooves, secured with bolts and at the same time adjusted its position.

When installing door blocks with a glass panel in a sauna, it is better to use paranite gaskets to press them. This is important to consider when purchasing a product at a hardware store. The density of paranite also needs to be taken into account. It should not be too soft, as the door will not last long on such pads.

After installing and fixing all components of the structure, preliminary adjustment is carried out and the correctness of the installation work is checked. For this purpose, a mounting level is used. After leveling the door block, the necessary fittings are installed on it. Additionally, you can decorate the structure with various decorative components.

Basic requirements for bath doors

Whatever the model or size of the doors, they must efficiently perform their assigned function of preserving heat in the bathhouse. Therefore, certain requirements are imposed on them. So, they should:

be easy to open (so that you can quickly leave the room if necessary);
have a threshold with a gap (for air circulation);
be strong, not wide, not very high;
have good thermal insulation and the ability to withstand external factors (moisture, high temperature, etc.);
be resistant to fire.

In addition, they should not slam shut under any circumstances. Otherwise, the risk of getting burned by grabbing the handle or other parts is very high. Also, do not forget that wooden doors can burst due to the abundance of moisture and elevated temperatures. Don't risk your health! Place structures that you can open even by crawling (if you suddenly get a heart attack or something else happens).

Repair: how to straighten a wooden bath door

Let us immediately clarify that the question “how to straighten a wooden door in a bathhouse” can be generated by two different and unrelated reasons. In one case, the door simply sagged, tilted due to the fact that the hinges were weakened , and in another case everything was much worse - it could warp, that is, acquire a bend or winged appearance.

Let's consider both cases and treatment options.

If we are talking about loosening the loops, then they need to be tightened . To do this, the door is removed, the amount of play between the hinge and the frame is determined, the old fasteners are removed, and pieces of wood so that when screwing in new screws there is good adhesion to the frame. It is better to take new screws that are longer than the old ones . The time for the glue to dry is a day.

Alternatively, you can either completely rearrange the loops to a new location, or strengthen them by delivering new ones .

ATTENTION! When delivering new hinges, do not forget about their thickness, to which you need to trim the end of the door leaf and frame. This applies to mortise hinges and canopies. To avoid this, you can simply install a butterfly loop.

If the door simply fell down and sank without distortion , then the reason for this is wear on the working part of the hinges. You need to lift the door with wedges from below, determine how much it has sagged and prepare wire rings that fit onto the pins . After this, all that remains is to add a drop of machine oil and return the door to its place.

When the door is warped due to warping, there are no simple solutions. Warping is a defect that occurs during the drying and storage stages of lumber. There is practically no treatment for it. More precisely, it is possible to treat, but the result is unpredictable.

Option 1

You need a room with a humidity of 60-70%. In practice, this is what a Russian bathhouse is. It is necessary to saturate the part that has warped with moisture. And then they put her under oppression. The weight of the oppression should be 5-7 times the weight of the door itself. You can act sequentially: first press down the most curved part, then distribute the pressure evenly.

Option 2

Oblique jamb. That is, you need to repeat the bend of the door with the bend of the jamb.

Option 3

With slight warping, it may be possible to trim the desired area .

WARNING! However, experts say that if the door warps, it is better to say goodbye, because the efforts made are often in vain.

*** Finally, one little piece of advice: regardless of the species, you need to take well-dried wood . Only in this case will you avoid problems with warping.

In addition to wooden panels, glass doors are in demand, which are an excellent solution for a steam bath or sauna. A separate article is devoted to the dimensions of steam room products. Each person decides which door is better to install in the bathhouse independently, having decided on the assigned tasks and having studied the offered range.

Useful tips

In order for bath procedures to bring true pleasure, in addition to the size, it is worth considering some other nuances of choosing doors.

The tightness of the joint between the sash and the frame. Then no seals will be needed to reduce heat loss.
The structure installed in the steam room opening must be made of heat-resistant materials. Otherwise, it will “lead” quite quickly, and the appearance of cracks is inevitable; it's just a matter of time.
There must be a gap between the blade and the threshold. Otherwise, natural circulation of air flows will not be ensured.
Structural elements (as well as their finishing), taking into account the specifics of the bath, should not contain toxic components.
The peculiarity of the steam room (excessive humidity) makes it advisable to install a glass door in it. This will be much more expensive, but it's worth taking into account.

If you follow all the recommendations given, it is not difficult to choose the right door model for your bathhouse. Its material is at your own discretion, but it is still more advisable to choose structures made of wood. Good thermal insulation, environmental friendliness, reasonable cost and excellent appearance will be guaranteed.

Even a small bathhouse should have at least 2 doors: the entrance and the one that separates the steam room from the dressing room. Everyone can choose the color, shape, design of these products to suit their taste. Therefore, we will not touch on these parameters, but will talk about the length, width and thickness of the structures. It is probably not worth mentioning that the dimensions of doors for a bathhouse are very different from those installed in any other room. Since the temperature here must remain quite high, they are much smaller than usual.

Hinges for bath doors: design

On sale you will find several classes of door hinges, here they are:

invoices (external and internal);
mortise;
screw-in

All of them are suitable for use in a sauna , but not all types are intended for sauna doors; you just need to choose something that fits organically with your existing style. In other words, wall-mounted ones are good in a traditional bathhouse, and screw-in ones are good in a modern sauna with an electric heater and a glass door.

Invoices

External ones are located entirely outside the door . The fastening is not hidden; on the contrary, it is made a decorative element .

Once upon a time, long overhead hinges were also intended to protect the door leaf from deformation . Now the same can be achieved in other ways, so the length is not important.

As mentioned above, this type of hinge is good in a traditional bathhouse - a log house, for example.

Their design is interesting: there should be a pin inside that acts as an axis of rotation. But with this design, an ordinary cylindrical pin would fall out of the loop. Therefore, it is riveted on one or two rotating parts.

BY THE WAY! The cheapest type of hinges at the moment for bath doors of different sizes.

These were external . And then there are internal ones , and their structure is completely different. This is a type of card loop that does not require insertion due to its reduced thickness. You will understand everything if you look at the photograph demonstrating the structure of the butterfly loop. Due to its design, it is twice as thin as a simple card loop , which is of the mortise type (see below).

Mortise

When, in order to connect the door to the frame, you first need to work a little with a chisel, choosing a layer to match the thickness of the fittings, then such hinges or canopies will be called mortise .

They are durable and have proven themselves in use. Another name is card .

IMPORTANT! We must not forget that they are divided into left and right. Therefore, when purchasing, you need to tell the seller which door you have - left or right (or look at the P and L marks yourself). It is determined this way: standing on the side where your door opens towards you, look at whether it is attached to the frame on the right or left.

There is a slight difference between card awnings and hinges. It lies in the length and fixation of the axial pin .

short axial pin ; it is fixed in the bottom card, which is screwed to the door frame. And for hinges it is end-to-end, unsecured, passing through the rotating parts of both cards. The pin has a thickening on top that prevents it from falling, and a decorative plug is placed at the bottom. ( When installing, the plug should not be on top! )

Card hinge with bearings

bearings can also be added , which are located between the rotating parts of the cards.

The main advantage of canopies is the ability to quite easily remove the door if necessary. But this is only if the platband does not interfere with this.

However, card loops also have the advantage that they are neither right nor left, because the position of the axial pin can be freely changed.

Screw-in

Here, too, there is a choice between canopies and hinges, with the same difference in the fixity of the axial rod. The main difference from card ones is the absence of flat parts : the fastening is welded directly to the rotating parts.

ON A NOTE! Screw-in hinges also do not depend on the left-right position on the door. They are universal.

Their device can be seen in the following figure.

It is already clear from it that the structure of the door leaf must be different from the usual one in order to install such hinges or canopies. And indeed, the door for such fittings (the leaf itself) should have a so-called false quarter , that is, protrude somewhat above the frame.

IMPORTANT! If you want to install screw-in fittings, coordinate this in advance with the seller or door manufacturer.

A type of screw-in hinges are those used for fastening glass door panels for baths . In this case, half of the loop will be screwed in, and the second (the one that holds the glass) either fixes it with a clamp - these are clamping loops, or by fastening it into a hole made in the glass.

Unlike conventional screw-in fittings, glass fittings have two welded screws, between which there is a part for fixing the glass.

BY THE WAY! Yes, the number of turning elements can vary from two to four, depending on the severity of the door. This applies to all hinge devices, except for overhead hinges - those have three elements, two for the box, one for the canvas. (The device is the same for glass.)

Installing a door, as well as its insulation, requires a competent and careful approach.

Combined type windows

The combined type of windows involves the use of several materials in different combinations, in particular:

wood with plastic;
wood and aluminum;
plastic with aluminum;
aluminum with wood and plastic.

The combination of several materials can improve the thermal insulation properties of windows. And most often the first two combinations of materials are used.

You can combine materials in windows in this way:

The inside of the frame is lined with wooden planks, and the partitions and the entire frame are made of plastic. Such windows appear to be made of wood from the inside. For protection and additional decoration, the wood is coated with several layers of varnish.
The entire frame is made from laminated veneer lumber, and aluminum or plastic strips are placed on the outside using clamps to allow the wood to “breathe.”
First, two independent frames are made - the inner one is made of wood, and the outer one is made of plastic or metal. Along the perimeter, the frames are connected to each other with special brackets, and the glazing is done with ordinary glass, and not with bags. If desired, any of the frames can be removed.