The Aluco Floating Lock doors provide a steel-look interior door, front, side or back door, designed in the style of Art-Deco steel doors and where the feature lock and handle body of Crittall® and other steel brands floats into the glass. The first significant advantage of Aluco floating lock doors is creating steel-look doors in an all-glass design with no bars. The second is doors designed in such a way that they create what are probably the slimmest exterior residential aluminium doors you can buy. Here is everything you need to know about Aluco floating lock exterior and interior doors.
Aluco Floating Lock Doors – no other aluminium door like it
Aluco Aluminium exclusively makes the Aluco floating lock door in Cambridgeshire. It is, in essence, a residential door in the Crittall® style. Several of these products are available on the market, but the Aluco floating lock design differs in how it looks and the doors it can create. The Aluco door is unique because we know no other aluminium door is made or styled in this way.
The construction of these doors is largely done by hand, especially at the distinctive feature lock body behind the handle. The safety glass used in these doors is cut and shaped to go around the lock body, with single glass for internal doors or a highly insulated glass unit for exterior doors.
This door does what other aluminium Crittall® style doors can’t. That is, allowing the feature lock body to be standalone. Other brands must have the bars or the door transoms attached to them by design. Steel doors are the only other doors providing this look, with the handle appearing to ‘float’ into the glass line. Making these doors takes longer and is a more specialist ‘craft’ than other aluminium systems.
The Aluco door range with the floating lock design
Aluco floating lock doors offer options for exterior and interior doors alongside the wider Aluco steel-look range of slimline windows, bifold doors, glazed screens and internal sliding doors.
The floating lock design allows the creation of all-glass doors, using significantly slimmer profiles than standard aluminium side or back patio doors.
Aluco Exterior doors
For the outside, doors are available as single or double doors, with optional side or top panels. All doors use insulated aluminium profiles, protected and coloured by a professionally applied colour finish.
You can use these doors as single or double patio doors leading out to the garden, side doors from a utility room, front doors in a porch or as an aluminium door within an aluminium conservatory or glazed extension.
Doors come as standard with multipoint locking, robust door handles, standard or Art-Deco, security key cylinders, and the glass securely held in place from inside. Standard or low thresholds, doors opening in or out and compliance with the latest Building Regulations all come as standard.
If you are happy with the more prominent styling at the door handle, these are entirely fit-for-purpose exterior aluminium doors, as shown in these examples.
Aluco Interior Doors
The same look is also available for internal steel-look doors, recently redesigned and significantly improved by Aluco. These doors are, of course, on-trend in the latest industrial and heritage designs. They create stylish room dividers, partition doors and screens or glazed doors in any room with clear or opaque glass. And being internal doors, there is no threshold or step-over, leaving floors running uninterrupted. Also available is a selection of designer door handles and general door accessories.
What makes Aluco doors the slimmest patio doors?
Aluco’s floating lock design allows substantially slimmer doors than standard, non-steel-look, aluminium single and double doors. At the all-important hinge and lock sides and at the meeting mullions, Aluco ultra slim doors have face dimensions as much as 50% slimmer than others. These doors can be slimmer because other standard single and double doors need thicker frame profiles to house the locking system and handles. Sightlines must increase as a result.
With the floating lock design, the lock and handle are located within the feature lock body at the handle position. Whilst this sightline is prominent, the benefit is allowing all the remaining door profiles to be much smaller. Even more impressive is that whilst the feature lock body goes into the glass line, it is only 127mm wide. Even with the visible intrusion into the glass line, the Aluco door remains thinner than standard aluminium doors overall.
Our table below shows how slim this door is compared to most other aluminium door brands.
| Product | Frame & Sash Face Dimension | Double Door Meeting Stiles Face Dimension |
|---|---|---|
| Aluco Floating Lock Doors | 58mm or 71mm | 116.5 |
| Reynaers SlimLine 38 Slim Frame | 101.5mm | 170mm |
| Smart Systems Alitherm Door | 110mm | 161mm |
| Smart Systems Alitherm 400 | 129mm | 195mm |
| Aluk 58BD | 129.5mm | 209.5mm |
| Origin Doors OB-49 | 130mm | 110mm |
| Smart Systems Visotherm Door | 131mm | 199mm |
| Sheerline Residential Doors | 137mm | 180mm |
| Origin Doors OB-72 | 139.5mm | 154mm |
| Reynaers SlimLine 38 Standard Frame | 149.5mm | 170mm |
| Reynaers MasterLine 8 Standard Frame | 153mm | 215mm |
| Reynaers CS77 | 160mm | 210mm |
Aluco Floating Lock Doors for outside and in.
As a steel-look and Crittall® style door, the Aluco range offers a more premium option with its hand-finishing and overall product quality.
With the slimline design on exterior doors being sought after by buyers, many contact us asking about finding thinner doors than those they’ve seen in showrooms. The reality is, standard aluminium doors are always thicker because of how the locks are located within the frame profiles. You won’t find any truly slim aluminium single or double exterior doors.
If you are happy with the Crittall style or steel look and are happy to have the more prominent lock body, Aluco’s door provides about the only slim solution right now, with smaller face dimensions, less visible aluminium and the most amount of glass. The fully glazed design with no bars looks best. Or you can go with the full steel look, using 20mm or 25mm glazing bars or standard transoms.
Black or white is very popular for this style of doors, but any of the RAL colours are also available.
With door leaf sizes up to 900mm wide and 2200mm high, Aluco floating lock doors suit most standard existing or new-build openings. Internally, the door leaf sizes go up to 1000mm wide and 2400mm high.
Aluco doors, therefore, not only give you stylish modern or classic steel-inspired designs but also advanced aluminium doors, hand-made and hand-finished in a very distinctive design and providing a thin aluminium door solution. Only a steel door is as slim or slimmer.
