Here at Karoly Windows & Doors, we get a lot of questions about impact window and door installation. One of the most frequently asked questions we hear about impact doors (right behind price questions) is: “How long does it take to install a door in my home?”
The answer is: “It depends.” What kind of door or window are we talking about? How big is it? Where in the home is it going to be installed? How much prep work is needed around the door or window frame to get it ready for the new installation to start?
Let’s start with the basics of how long it typically takes to install an impact door and some of the variables that can affect how long it takes for an installation to finish:
How Long Does It Take to Install a Door?
The installation time for impact-rated doors can vary significantly depending on the door style and size. Here are a few average install times for different types of doors:
- Impact Service/Side Entry Door: About 2-3 hours. These doors are often located in areas where there’s less decorative brickwork or other home design elements that need to be carefully worked around, helping speed up the installation process.
- Front Single Entry Door: Usually about 3 hours, give or take. These entryways may have more decoration to deal with, making the installation process take a little longer as installers carefully work around it.
- Front Single Entry with a Sidelight: About 3 ½ hours or more. The addition of a sidelight adds complexity and extra steps to the job, making it take a little longer.
- Front Single Entry w/Double Sidelights: About 3-4 hours. More sidelights add more complexity and time to the job.
- Double Doors: About 3-4 hours, trending closer to 4. The extra door in the door frame adds a bit of work and complexity compared to installing a single entry door.
- Double Doors w/Sidelights: 4+ hours. Double doors with sidelights is a fairly major install that requires hours of work.
- Double Doors with Fixed Panels. Full-day job. This isn’t just putting in sidelights, but installing what is effectively two non-moving single doors alongside a fully functioning set of double doors. So, a full day is typically set aside for this kind of installation, especially if concrete needs to be poured to level the opening.
- 2-Panel Sliding Glass Door: About 2 hours, maybe 3 for a larger SGD. significant work may be needed to remove the old frame and track, then prepare the installation of the new frame and track.
- Pocket Slider: 4 hours or more depending on number of panels. The extended track of the door that goes along your wall requires extensive work to prepare and make sure everything will rest perfectly square once the new doors are installed.
- 6-Panel Bi-Parting Slider. This is usually another full-day installation, as 6-panel doors are often very large, requiring lots of work to remove the old door and prep the entryway for the new sliding door.
While real-world times may vary, with some door installations going in faster than others, the times listed above are generally close to what you might expect for each kind of door installation.
This information can be helpful for planning around your impact window and door installation schedule. It can also help you see if an installer’s time estimate for labor on a price quote is realistic.
For example, if an installation company’s stated cost of labor is $75/hr, and it takes two people 3 hours to install a door, that’s $450 minimum for installation of that door (not counting the value of the door itself or the tools/consumables needed for the installation). If the quote says that the labor charge for installing that door is only $225, then there’s a potential problem with the quote, as it won’t actually fully account for your installation costs.
This, in turn, can lead to additional fees after the installation to cover the ‘unaccounted for’ costs.
By knowing how long installations typically take, you’re better prepared to spot inconsistencies in an installation company’s quote for service!
What Variables Affect How Long It Takes to Install an Impact Door?
Okay, so the times listed in the bullet list above were all average times. What variables might make an installation take more or less time to install? Here are a few things that might impact your installation time:
Door Location
Doors on the ground floor take far less time to install than doors on higher floors of a building. For example, if your home is on the ninth floor of a condominium, that’s going to turn a simple 2-3 hour installation into an all-day job for some doors.
Say you have a sliding glass door to your balcony on the ninth floor. It’s a simple two-panel SGD. Each panel has to be removed and carried down to the ground floor intact so there’s no broken glass in your home. Then, the new panels need to be carried up, usually on the return trip from carrying down the old ones.
The frame of the sliding glass door also needs to be removed, dismantled, and carried down while the new frame is carried up.
If the elevator can’t accommodate the glass panels or the frame, the heavy panels will need to be carried manually up and down nine flights of stairs. That’s an enormous amount of hard work for any installation crew.
This is a major reason why a door installation on a high floor of a condominium or other communal structure will cost far more to install than a door being put in on the ground floor. It’s all that additional time needed simply to carry up the new doors and carry down the old ones for disposal.
Home Deco Around the Install Site
What kind of deco and trim surrounds the installation site for the new door? The style of the deco and how it integrates with the door frame can have a huge impact on the materials needed to complete the installation as well as how long the installation takes.
If there’s decorative brickwork or trim that needs to be carefully preserved as the old door is ripped out and the new one is installed, then the work crew will need to operate more carefully. This increases installation time and cost.
This is especially important when installing pocket sliding glass doors. Why? Because pocket sliders have extended tracks that run along the wall of the home. That typically means having to specially prepare the wall for the track. A plain, mostly-smooth wall might not require as much extra preparation as, say, a rough-surfaced wall that needs to be sanded down to create a smooth surface for the track to be attached to.
The more prep work needs to be done to the area around the door, the longer it’s going to take to install.
Pouring Concrete for a Doorway
When converting a doorway from one type of door to another type of door, like going from a swinging door to a sliding glass door or vice versa, extra work may be needed to create a level opening that the new door can rest on.
For example, pouring and curing concrete is a fairly frequent way to modify a door opening so that the doorway is flat and even to ensure smooth operation. It’s also sometimes used to fill gaps in a larger doorway to enhance the opening.
In this image, you can see a doorway which had been converted from a sliding glass door to a swing-out entry door with two double-hung windows. In this install, we used concrete to not only level the opening, but to raise the wall for the installation of two double-hung impact windows (with the installation of two thick mullions and a wood frame for the door and windows).
Pouring the concrete and waiting for it to finish curing is a long process, though the actual curing delay is often when the work crew works on installing other windows or doors in the residence.
This can turn a single doorway into an all-day project, but if there are other windows or doors to install, it won’t have as large of an impact on the overall timeline for the installation as the total time from start to finish might suggest.
Get Prompt Expert Installation!
When you’re getting new impact doors installed, the last thing you want is for your installers to waste your time (and money).
Karoly Windows & Doors provides prompt expert installation for impact doors of all styles and sizes. They know what they’re doing so they can consistently meet installation timelines without wasting your time. We also thoroughly account for and itemize labor for window and door installation in our price quotes so you know exactly what you’ll spend on your installation labor.
With Karoly Windows, the price in your installation quote is the price you’ll pay. Period. We’re so confident in our consistency and the accuracy of our price quotes that we can guarantee that your price won’t change from the date you sign the quote to when your installation is complete.
Get reliable installation without the bait-and-switch games that all too many installers play. Reach out to Karoly Windows & Doors to request an in-home window and door installation consultation and quote for service!
