Which wood is the best choice for a wooden door?

Pirnar makes wooden doors from three kinds of wood. Each kind gives the doors special features, colour, texture and character. Read on to find out which suits you best.

Pirnar makes entry doors from three types of solid wood – spruce, larch and oak. Each kind has its own properties that can be used for different purposes. The mechanical properties dictate how the wood can be designed and what kind of insulating properties the door will provide. Each kind of wood transforms an entry door into a unique piece of art with its distinctive colour and structure.

Spruce

Spruce (Picea abies) is a fast-growing conifer tree. It has a conical crown with curved branches. The trunk is elongated. The maximum tree height is from 20 to 30 metres and the width varies from 5 to 7 metres. The bark is resinous, reddish-brown and very rough. Spruce wood is yellowish-white to yellowish-brown. The borders between the rings are clear with the transition from the early to late growth being gradual. Planed wood has a satin gloss, smells of resin and resin pockets (disc-shaped holes filled with resin) are frequent. It only differs from fir trees in the occurrence of the resin canals, which fir lacks. The cross-section of the gnarls is generally oval.

Spruce wood density is low to medium with the wood being very soft. It has a medium compressive strength and a low bending strength. The elastic modulus is also low.The wood itself is not resistant to fungi and insects. However, it is moderately weather-resistant when not in contact with soil.

Spruce wood dries well and easily, though it tends to bend and crack a little. After drying, the wood is dimensionally stable. Spruce wood is suitable for mechanical processing and milling as it provides very smooth surfaces. It can be glued, patinated and lacquered moderately well, but is difficult to waterproof.

Pirnar spruce entry doors show the typical wood structure and come in four different bright colours when processed with transparent stains. However, if the wood is combined with aluminium elements, the choice of colours is slightly bigger. Such wooden doors blend in perfectly with the natural shades of other doors and windows as well as light flooring. Spruce wood goes well with any entry door product line, offering a foundation that can be upgraded in a classic or more avant-garde manner.

Larch

Larch (Larix decidua) is a high tree with thick bark, reaching up to 40 metres in height and with a diameter of more than 1.5 meters. It is a conifer tree that sheds its needles in winter. Its branches grow from the trunk in clusters, are horizontal with hanging lateral offshoots.

The colour of the wood varies from a yellowish-whitish to a reddish heartwood that darkens in contact with air. The borders between the tree rings are sharp, with very wide dark late growth wood clearly separated from the early growth wood. The planed surfaces are partly matte, partly glossy, and the wood smells nice. The resin canals run through the wood separately and are barely visible.

Larch wood has a medium density. The wood is medium hard to hard. The compressive and bending strength is medium with a medium elastic modulus. This means that the wood is dense, heavy and resistant, which is why it is used for all kinds of products that need to be durable. Larch wood processes well and can be cleaved.It dries well, though it is slightly prone to cracking and bending. After drying, the wood is moderately dimensionally stable. The surface is also easily processed. It must be treated with resin dissolving agents prior to patination.

Larch wood fascinates with its dense structure and a slightly reddish colour. The Pirnar larch wood doors are painted with transparent stains or oiled to give them different shades. This wood also goes amazingly well with modern materials and gives the entry doors a touch of luxury.

Oak

The term oak is used as part of the common name of any of the hundreds of species of trees and shrubs of the Quercus genus and some related genera. In Slovenia, oak is the fourth most common tree after spruce, beech and fir. There are six different kinds of oak in our area:

• common oak (Quercus robur),
• sessile oak (Quercus petraea),
• downy oak (Quercus pubescens),
• turkey oak (Quercus cerris),
• evergreen oak or holly oak (Quercus ilex) and
• Spanish oak (Quercus crenata).

The sapwood of the oak is narrow and grey-white, while the heartwood is yellowish-brown to brown, which can darken significantly. The vessel elements are large in the early growth wood, smaller in the late growth wood, often arranged in several radial arrays. The pores in the early growth wood and the strips are clearly visible to the naked eye. The strips are very wide and appear as dark, up to 5cm long vertical lines in the cross section and as glitter in the radial cross section.

Oak wood density depends on the ring width: the wider the ring, the higher density of the wood and the better its mechanical properties. Oak wood shrinks significantly, its strength is excellent with the wood also being flexible. Additionally, the wood is very elastic. It features exceptional natural durability, especially underwater.

The wood dries moderately well but slowly because it is prone to cracking and bending. After drying, oak wood is dimensionally stable. It processes well mechanically, including milling and carving. Gluing causes no problems. The application of patinas and lacquers is easy.

Oak is a symbol of strength, endurance and power. The wood alone features a wealth of shades ranging from grey-white to brown and it can darken significantly. This property is used when treating the wood with transparent stains and oils to obtain rich shades that resemble exotic types of wood.

No matter what kind of wood you wish for your entry doors, Pirnar will make sure that you get the best wooden door to be displayed proudly for years to come.

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