Custom Doors a Nightmare or an Income Generator?
Custom man doors tend to sit in a strange place within the construction and millwork world. On paper, they seem like a premium offering—high-margin, detail-oriented, and a great way to showcase craftsmanship. In reality, they often become one of the most inconsistent and frustrating components of a project.
Over the course of my professional experience, I’ve seen three different approaches to custom doors—and three very different outcomes.
Approach One - Avoidance
Some companies won’t touch them at all. To them, custom doors represent too much risk for too little reward. The variability in openings, wall conditions, and site tolerances make it difficult to standardize the process, and without standardization, profitability is nearly impossible to guarantee. While avoidance is wise way to not lose money, it also creates missed opportunities for bids, contracts, work, and additional income and growth opportunities.
Approach Two - Field heavy
Some companies take the opposite approach—they accept custom door work regularly but consistently loss money on it. The issue isn’t a lack of skill or effort. In fact, the problem is rooted in the insistence on performing too much of the work in the field. Jambs, casings, and even door fitting are all done on site. While this may sound flexible in theory, it leads to massive inefficiencies. Field conditions are rarely ideal for precision work, and the added labor hours, rework, and delays quickly eat into any potential profit. I personally witnessed projects where companies lost thousands in labor and material costs simply due to this approach. In addition to the lost labor and material costs, it looks unprofessional and is embarrassing when GC’s and homeowners watch the team struggling in troubleshooting problems as they occur in the field.
Approach Three - Shop Built - Field installed
This is the most successful approach to custom millwork doors. It comes down to two key principles: internal control and increased flexibility for the installers.
Own the opening. Rough framing is simply that, rough. it’s generally not accurate or as precise as necessary for affixing door jambs and casings to in the field. In addition, walls are rarely the same thickness and studs are rarely straight or plumb. If a wall is even 1/16” off, an inflexible casing or jamb won’t finish seamlessly unless you account for variability. Often times when companies rely heavily on the field approach to installation they neglect the internal milling systems that enable a smooth installation. Two simple additions to this processes can save hundreds or thousands per job.
These additions include a slip jamb and a casing that slide into a dado on the jamb. These slip jambs and casing details give installers the flexibility they need to be efficient and effective in the field. The great news is that you don’t even need sophisticated equipment like CNC’s or an engineer to spend hours at a computer to create these two systems. Creating this standard in the shop only takes a few minutes in drafting and a shaper with the right bits. A skilled draftsman paired with a skilled wood machinist can produce these two quickly. Another tactic is to assemble each side of the jamb and casing in the shop to ship to the field.
While field installers may be very skilled woodworkers, the environment of the field isn’t conducive to fabrication. The shop is. The shop is where most of the materials are stored and where the engineering team resides, so if a problem arises in assembly of the unit, it can be rectified quickly. Assembling doors, jambs, and casings in the shop, and fully fitting everything together before sending it out for installation may seem redundant, I’ve found that it saves many hours in the custom door world. By assembling these units in the shop, guesswork in the field is eliminated, on site margin of error is reduced, and assembly is faster due to the environment of the shop compared to the field. With this method, installers weren’t building components in unpredictable conditions—they were installing a system that enables flexibility while reducing a variety of inefficiencies.
Applying this strategy to pocket doors, fabricating the actual pocket assemblies, including the pocket, in-house ensures smoother operation, tighter tolerances, and faster installation times.
This systemic approach, leveraging the key strengths of the shop and the field creates a high quality product that makes installation easier, while increasing profit margins on custom doors. As well, it leaves most of the troubleshooting behind closed doors, presenting a professional appearance on site. It says, we’re competent, fast, high quality, and professional. While other custom millwork shops are refusing to take on the work or visibly struggling in the field to fit a 300 pound brass door into a house, you’ll walk in an look like a magician putting the door in the hole with ease.
In this high competitive market where every dollar and second counts, this is the type of advantage that sets you apart from your competition. GC’s, architects and designers will remember you because this system makes their life easier and makes them look better to their clients. In this market, being a company that continually provides excellence through standards that enable flexibility and efficiency while remaining highly custom is rare and demands respect, a premium, and leads to continued success and wealth.
If you’re a millwork company struggling with custom doors, or wanting to expand into the custom door market feel free to reach out for a consultation. I would love to help you become more profitable and a stronger.
Have a great day!
