Solid wood doors have long been considered the premiumand onlychoice for homes.
The Spruce / Nusha Ashjaee
Wood Doors: What’s the Difference?
Solid Wood Door
Solid wood doors are just as the name says: made all of wood.
The Spruce / Nusha Ashjaee
All elements of the door except for knobs, hinges, and hardware are wood.
Usually, solid wood doors are not a solid slab of wood.
They are pieced together from several smaller pieces of wood.
Solid wood doors can be used either for interiors or exteriors.
Tip
Why not a single slab of wood?
Not only that but large slabs of wood tend to crack and split.
Doors composed of various, smaller pieces of wood are flexible and can adapt to temperature and humidity shifts.
This fiberboard is good for deadening sound and for providing an overall sense of security.
Installing a solid core door will always improvesoundproofingwhen it replaces a standard hollow-core door.
While the inside is fiberboard, the outside will be a different and higher quality material like hardwood veneer.
Solid core doors are just for interiors.
Composite wood typically does not warp, shrink, or crack.
Hollow core door interiors are sourced from wood but only nominally.
The source product is unrecognizable as wood since it is turned into corrugated cardboard stiffeners.
The outside is fiberboard embossed with wood grain or sometimes with real wood veneer.
Hollow core doors are used only on interiors.
Rarely, if ever, are wood doors made from a solid woodslab.
Exterior doors made from wood typically use solid wood construction for strength and security.
With interior doors, however, you have other options.
Solid wood doors are 100-percent natural wood, except for the hardware or accessories.
Solid wood doors are now built with a frame-and-panel construction.
Sound-blockage is good to excellent, depending on wood species.
The classic wood panel door looks and feels like one piece of wood, though it is not.
When used for exteriors, the wood must be finished or painted.
Solid wood doors are a good choice where historical authenticity is desired.
Hollow core doors are cost-saving products often used for the many interior passage doors found in a house.
Most mid-range production houses built today receive hollow core interior doors as a matter of course.
The frame and honeycomb core provides some rigidity to the door, as well as minimal sound-blocking ability.
One downside of hollow core doors is that the edges are not covered by the veneer.
Edges can be sanded and finished.
The lightweight construction of hollow core doors means that they are prone to breakage.
It’s easy to punch through a hollow core door without even meaning to do so.
This also means that they provide almost no security within the home.
Solid-core wood doors can be used for either exterior or interior doors.
These medium-priced doors can be more affordable than solid wood.
The sound blockage is excellent.
Solid-core doors offer good fire resistance when they are at least 1 3/4 inches thick.
Construction makes them resistant to expansion and contraction due to humidity changes.
Excellent sound blockage
Mid-priced
Good fire resistance
Resists warping
Fewer style options than solid wood
Difficult to install
Heavy
