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Entry Doors in Fort Lauderdale, FL
A new entry door in Fort Lauderdale typically runs between $1,200 and $4,800 installed, depending on the door material, glass package, and whether the existing frame needs to be replaced. Most jobs are completed in a single day, and every installation TruePane Windows & Doors completes is covered by the 90-Day Done Right Promise with both warranty layers registered in writing before our truck leaves your driveway.
If your current front door warps in the summer heat, lets in salt-air drafts around the weatherstripping, or simply no longer closes flush – you already know the feeling. South Florida’s humidity and coastal exposure are harder on entry doors than almost anywhere else in the country. A door that sealed fine ten years ago may be leaking conditioned air through gaps a quarter-inch wide, which is why many homeowners turn to Replacement Doors. We see it constantly in neighborhoods like Victoria Park, Rio Vista, and Coral Ridge, where original mahogany doors from the 1970s and 1980s have finally reached the end of their useful life.
TruePane Windows & Doors has been doing this work in Fort Lauderdale since Dale Kessler founded the company in 2008, building on a glazier’s tradition that goes back over 42 years. We’re an authorized installer for CGI and ES Windows, among more than a dozen other manufacturer lines, and we carry side-by-side quotes on paper so you see exactly what you’re buying before any commitment is made. If you’d like to talk through your options today, a live person answers our phone around the clock at (754) 310-3589.
Our entry door work is part of our broader Door Installation in Fort Lauderdale service – if you’re also looking at a patio slider, a garage door, or interior replacements, we can scope everything in a single visit.
When You Need a New Entry Door
Some of these signs are easy to spot. Others have been there so long you’ve stopped noticing them. Here’s what tells us a door has run its course:
- The door sticks or drags through summer. Fort Lauderdale’s humidity – often above 80% from June through September – causes wood cores and improperly sealed frames to swell. If you’re lifting the handle to engage the latch, the door is already out of true.
- Visible daylight around the frame. Stand inside on a bright afternoon and look at the perimeter of your closed door. Any light means conditioned air is escaping the same way – and your AC is compensating around the clock.
- Salt-air corrosion on hardware and frame. Homes within a mile of the Intracoastal or the Atlantic – Las Olas Isles, Harbor Beach, Lauderdale Beach – face accelerated corrosion on hinges, locksets, and aluminum thresholds. When the hardware fails, the door usually follows soon after.
- The glass or sidelites are fogged or cracked. A broken seal in decorative sidelite glass isn’t just cosmetic. It signals the door unit’s thermal barrier has failed, and in many cases the entire door and frame assembly needs to be replaced to restore an airtight fit.
- The door does not meet current Miami-Dade or Broward County impact requirements. If your entry door predates 2002 and has never been upgraded, there’s a reasonable chance it doesn’t meet current Florida Building Code wind-load requirements. Permit inspectors and insurance underwriters are both paying closer attention to this now.
- The door looks wrong for the house. This one matters more than people admit. An entry door is the first impression of a home, and after twenty-plus years a door that once felt solid may now look dated or mismatched. A properly fitted replacement changes the whole face of the house.
Our Entry Door Installation Process
We don’t use a templated checklist that applies the same to every job. But our process for entry doors in Fort Lauderdale follows a consistent sequence that keeps things square, square, and square again – which is where the founding rule comes from: if the pane is not true, the job is not done.
- Measure the opening – twice, then once more. Every opening is measured at the top, middle, and bottom of both dimensions. In older Fort Lauderdale homes, particularly the post-war bungalows in Riverside Park and Middle River Terrace, rough openings are rarely as square as the original builder intended. We account for that before we order anything.
- Present manufacturer options side by side on paper. Based on your opening dimensions, your exposure (coastal versus inland), and your HOA requirements if applicable, we lay out the viable manufacturer lines – CGI impact doors, ES Windows product lines, or other authorized brands – with prices, glass packages, and warranty durations written out so you can compare without guessing.
- Handle permits where required. Broward County requires a permit for entry door replacements that involve structural changes to the opening or impact-rated door installations in certain zones. We pull the permit, schedule the inspection, and close it out. That’s part of the job, not an upsell.
- Remove the old door and assess the frame. On installation day, the existing door comes out carefully. We inspect the rough opening, sill, and surrounding substrate for rot, water infiltration, or previous shoddy work before anything new goes in. In coastal neighborhoods, we occasionally find water damage behind the old frame that the homeowner didn’t know was there – we show it, document it, and quote the remediation honestly before proceeding.
- Set and level the new door unit. The door is shimmed, plumbed, and leveled to the opening – not forced into it. Hardware is installed, weatherstripping is seated, and the threshold is adjusted for the floor finish. We test the swing, the latch, the deadbolt, and the door’s seal under pressure before we’re satisfied.
- Register both warranty layers in writing before we leave. The Keystone Standard means both the manufacturer product warranty and the installation warranty are registered in your name, durations stated, paperwork in your hand. Our 90-Day Done Right Promise covers the workmanship on top of that – no arguing, no fine print, no waiting on a corporate call center to tell you it’s not covered.
Entry Door Pricing in Fort Lauderdale
Entry door costs in Fort Lauderdale vary more than most homeowners expect, mainly because material, glass, and impact rating do most of the work on the price when you choose our Door Installation services. Here are honest ranges based on what we typically install in Broward County:
| Door Type | Typical Installed Price Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Steel entry door, non-impact, standard glass | $1,200 – $1,900 | Best for inland locations; not suited for coastal wind zones without impact upgrade |
| Fiberglass entry door, non-impact | $1,600 – $2,800 | Handles humidity better than wood; resists salt-air corrosion |
| Impact-rated fiberglass or steel entry door | $2,200 – $3,800 | Meets Broward County and Florida Building Code wind requirements; commonly required within 1 mile of coast |
| Impact-rated door with decorative glass or sidelites | $3,000 – $4,800 | CGI and ES Windows both carry impact sidelite configurations; glass package affects price significantly |
| Full door system with transom and double sidelites | $4,200 – $7,500+ | Common in larger Rio Vista, Las Olas Isles, and Harbor Beach homes; custom sizing affects lead time |
What drives the price up: impact-rated glazing, decorative glass inserts, wider or taller-than-standard openings, frame rot remediation, and HOA-specified finishes. What keeps it lower: standard opening dimensions, no sidelites, and an existing frame that’s sound and square.
Seniors and veterans receive a permanent 5% discount on every job, and if your total comes to over $250 for a repair component of the work, the current $50 Off Any Repair Over $250 offer applies. We don’t add line items to the bill that weren’t in the quote – a square deal means the number you see is the number you pay.
Every estimate is free. Call (754) 310-3589 and a live person will get you scheduled – usually within a day or two for estimates, not weeks.
FAQs – Entry Doors in Fort Lauderdale
How much does entry door installation cost in Fort Lauderdale?
Entry door installation in Fort Lauderdale typically costs between $1,200 and $4,800 depending on the door material, impact rating, and glass package – with larger door systems including sidelites and transoms running higher. The biggest single cost factor for most Fort Lauderdale homeowners is whether the door needs to be impact-rated, which is why Hurricane-Proof Front & Entry Doors are required by Broward County code in many coastal zones and strongly encouraged by most insurance carriers regardless of location. Call (754) 310-3589 for a free estimate – we’ll quote you exactly what the job requires, nothing more.
Do I need a permit to replace my front door in Fort Lauderdale?
In most cases, yes – particularly if the replacement door is impact-rated or if the opening is being altered in any way. Broward County requires permits for impact door installations and any structural modification to an exterior opening, and the city of Fort Lauderdale enforces this through its building department. TruePane pulls the permit, schedules the inspection, and closes it out as part of the job. You won’t be left chasing an open permit when it comes time to sell the house.
How long does entry door installation take?
Most entry door installations in Fort Lauderdale are completed in a single day – typically four to six hours for a standard door unit, longer if the frame needs repair or if we’re installing a door with sidelites and a transom. The exception is French & Double Doors and other custom-sized or special-order doors, which require lead time from the manufacturer before the installation date. We’ll give you an honest timeline on the estimate visit so there are no surprises.
Is fiberglass or steel better for a Fort Lauderdale entry door?
Fiberglass holds up better in Fort Lauderdale’s climate for most homeowners. It doesn’t absorb moisture the way a wood core does, resists the salt-air corrosion that eats at steel over time in coastal neighborhoods, and holds its shape through the summer humidity swings that cause wood doors to swell and steel doors to dent. That said, a properly coated and maintained steel door is a sound choice for inland locations away from direct salt-air exposure, and it typically costs less. We’ll tell you which makes sense for your address and your exposure – not just which costs us less to install.
What warranties come with a new entry door from TruePane?
Every entry door installation TruePane completes includes The Keystone Standard: both the manufacturer product warranty and the installation workmanship warranty are registered in your name, in writing, with durations stated, before our truck leaves your driveway. On top of that, the 90-Day Done Right Promise covers any workmanship issue that surfaces in the first 90 days – no paperwork fight, no arguing about what’s covered. If something isn’t right, we make it right. Dale Kessler has kept that rule since the company’s first installation, and it hasn’t changed.
Entry Door Work Done Right, the First Time
Fort Lauderdale homeowners who have lived in their houses for twenty or thirty years have usually dealt with at least one contractor who left things slightly off: a door that doesn’t quite latch in August, a frame that was caulked over instead of fixed, a warranty card that was never mailed in. That kind of work compounds quietly until the next person who comes to sell the house finds an open permit or a failed inspection.
TruePane Windows & Doors has been doing this work in Fort Lauderdale for over 42 years as a craft tradition, not a franchise operation. Dale Kessler’s name is on every job because he intends to still be answering the phone – a live person, not a callback form – when you call in ten years. The work is backed in writing, the warranties are registered before we leave, and the price you see on the quote is the price on the invoice.
For everything related to your doors, start with our home page to see the full scope of what we do, or go directly to our Door Installation in Fort Lauderdale page if you’re comparing door types or scoping a larger project.
To schedule a free estimate on an entry door in Fort Lauderdale – or anywhere in Broward County – call (754) 310-3589. Someone picks up every call, any hour of the day.
Written by Dale Kessler, Owner at TruePane Windows & Doors, serving Fort Lauderdale.
Six Reasons Homeowners Choose TruePane Windows & Doors
Impact systems engineered to design pressures up to +/-100, matched to your wind zone - your openings hold when the storm arrives.
Low-E insulated impact glass from our manufacturer lines commonly cuts monthly cooling bills 20-30%.
Laminated impact glass shuts out up to 40% of outside noise - traffic, neighbors, weather.
Monitoring services run $30-90 a month. Laminated impact glass resists forced entry around the clock, with no subscription.
Florida homeowners average around 25% savings on the windstorm portion of their policy after protecting every opening - some homes qualify for more.
A full impact package upgrades curb appeal, buyer confidence and appraised value in one project.










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