Put Aluco steel look internal doors in your home or commercial building, and you’ll be rewarded with some of the best Crittall® style doors in aluminium. Aluco doors are beautifully made and hand-finished. Moreover, their overall styling and look, frame and bar sightlines make these arguably the closest to genuine steel doors, but in aluminium.
Aluco Steel-Look Internal Doors
The Aluco steel-look internal doors are the slimmest overall, with a better build quality, and some innovative and unique features you only get with this brand and not available on any other. We think these are the best internal doors of their type.
5
Pros
- Probably the best-looking aluminium steel-look doors.
- Sightlines are closest to steel doors.
- Beautifully made and finished.
- Solid feeling and nicely weighted.
- The floating lock design.
Cons
- Taken as a whole product offering, none.
In creating this review of the Aluco steel-look internal doors, we’ve seen and tried the product many times over recent years, both with Aluco at their factory, London Showroom and seeing the door with some of their approved installers and fully installed products in residential property. We have also conducted our research with competing products in person and with the various technical manuals, drawings and specifications.
What are Aluco steel look internal doors?
Aluco steel look internal doors are made by Aluco in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Whilst the steel look system has been around for several years (the Alitherm Heritage being the longest established), Aluco is different in spotting the trend for this on-trend glazing style long before its present popularity.
Aluco is the UK’s first company only to make steel-look, industrial and Art-Deco style doors in aluminium. Like other businesses focused only on what they do best, Aluco is now the leading brand in Crittall style internal doors, also manufacturing a complete range of exterior steel-look aluminium windows, patio doors, bifold doors and residential doors.
The Aluco steel look internal doors range.
Within The Aluco Interior Collection, you’ll find hinged single and double doors, internal sliding doors, glazed screens, and Aluco’s own unique creation, called Floating Lock, which is probably the slimmest aluminium door on the market we know of and every unique product.
Here is everything you need to know about the Aluco Floating Lock exterior and interior doors. This review focuses on the more standard internal hinged doors.
Aluco internal doors – design and aesthetics
The original Aluco steel-look internal doors were already so well designed they were the only aluminium door in this style and design with frame and astragal bar sizes close to the sightlines of genuine steel products. Completely redesigned and improved, the new Aluco steel look internal doors are even thinner on the all-important face widths, go taller and wider and feature a better overall build quality and construction.
Slimmer than Crittall® Doors
Carefully studying the well-known steel interior door brands and their sightlines reveals how well-designed the Aluco internal door is in getting as close as possible to steel.
The new Aluco internal door has been slimmed down even further with a face dimension of just 47mm – quite a reduction from the original 58mm face width. To put this into context, a typical Crittall® Innervision steel internal door has a dimension of 55mm.
This door is slimmer than its two main competitors, Origin internal doors and Aluspace.
The slimmest astragal bars
Alongside the slimmed-down design, the glazing bars offer the best options on the market for any aluminium internal door product.
Even more impressive, Aluco’s 20mm and 25mm astragal bar options are slimmer than the standard 28mm bar on Crittall’s Innervision product. And the 20mm and 25mm Aluco options are a near match for the 19mm and 25mm Crittall options.
Stronger, more rigid and better weighted
Perhaps the most significant improvements made to the improved design and manufacturing method of the new Aluco steel-look internal doors is how they are made.
First, they are entirely made in the factory around the glass. The benefit of this is the doors don’t rely on on-site glazing. Comparing this new door to the previous model reveals a more robust door that looks tighter and feels better weighted with tighter tolerances, even better corner joints and improved acoustics.
The exact appearance from both sides
With the advantage of having seen most internal doors on the market, Aluco has developed the only door design that gives the same look from both sides.
The glass sits centrally in the profile, providing the same look on the profile shoulders from any side. This is a significant visual improvement over other doors using the more standard method, placing the glass towards the front, with a minimal size at the front and a thicker aluminium profile behind.
Whilst most won’t mind the standard design, it’s only when you see the two up close that the Aluco door looks better and more balanced. As these doors are intended for inside the home, the look you get does matter.
Here you can see the difference between the Aluco door and another brand.
Aluco Technical Information
The specifications for internal doors are less than external doors, which need security and weather testing and more detailed technical information.
Aluco doors come with architectural quality aluminium profiles and are coated to strict industry quality standards. The glass used also meets industry standards for quality and conformity, and safety glass comes as standard with all Aluco doors.
Handle, Glass and door options.
Another improvement on the range of Aluco steel look internal doors is the glass. Now it comes with thicker 6mm glass as standard, with options for single glass widths of up to 7mm. The advantage is stronger safety glass with the option of laminated single or acoustic glass.
Within the glass, options are clear, patterned, obscure and traditional reeded glass, but virtually any current available glass type or design can be used.
For the hardware, Aluco provides two handle options. The original curved Maya handle is available in several finishes, and a new addition, a black-only contemporary straight handle, shown in the images above. Additionally, there’s a comprehensive range of door accessories such as floor stops, a door closer, latch and bathroom locks and adjustable door hinges.
Other products to compare with Aluco steel look internal doors
The two major competitors for Aluco steel-look internal doors will be Aluspace, designed by Smart Systems, and the excellent Origin OI-30 internal doors, which we’ve also reviewed. Both Origin and Aluco are fine doors. Either of these well-made and fitted will serve you very well, and you won’t be disappointed with these aluminium internal doors.
However, many homeowners preferring the genuine steel product will invariably re-visit aluminium when the much higher steel cost is outside their budget. A typical internal double door set with side panels can cost anywhere between £9000 and £15000, depending on the brand. Therefore these customers will naturally be interested in how aluminium steel-look doors compare. We’ve compared the sightlines of the prominent comparable products to Aluco, Origin OI-30 internal doors and Smart Systems Aluspace. Also compared with these brands is the Innervision Steel product by Crittall®.
| Aluco Doors | Origin OI-30 | Smart Aluspace | Crittall Innervision | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Face dimension, frame and sash | 47mm | 53.5mm | 63.5mm | 55mm |
| Face dimension including feature lockbox | 127mm | 143.2mm | 148.5mm | 135mm |
| Door frame head to glass line | 47mm | 53.5mm | 63.5mm | 55mm |
| Door bottom rail including floor clearance | 51mm | 30.3mm | 57.5mm | 53mm |
| Deep bottom rail, including floor clearance | 130mm | 97.5mm | 155mm | 110mm |
| Double door meeting stiles, glass to glass | 90mm | 75mm | 109.5mm | 55mm |
| Door frame to glazed side panel | 82mm | 93mm | 96.5mm | 55mm |
| Standard Transom size | 33mm | 35mm | 33mm | 29mm |
| Astragal Bar sizes available | 20mm 25mm | 35mm | n/a | 19mm 25mm |
The choices in internal steel-look and Crittall-style doors are improving for customers, with new brands constantly coming onto the market. The options available also include European-made systems in the steel look, each with its own design characteristics. ‘Steel-look doors’ using the grid pattern don’t just extend to all-aluminium systems.
You can buy doors from numerous manufacturers using glass doors with polished edges and simple pivot, sliding or hinged hardware. These glass doors have nothing more than bars stuck onto the glass, creating the grid pattern. If you like the styling, these glass doors are more straightforward and arguably more minimal in appearance.
When buying internal aluminium doors, there are significant differences between glass doors with no more than aluminium trims on the glass and brands like Aluco.
- The product is designed correctly, not a customised door.
- The aluminium profiles and colour finishes are of the right quality.
- The manufacturing process is advanced, giving you better-made doors.
- They are designed and tested to last longer, with meaningful guarantees.
- Proper steel-look doors are the safer buy and better investment.
The industrial, heritage, or Art-Deco look is a style that looks here to stay. What is the best style is down to personal preference, cost and how long you want your doors to last.
Aluco steel look internal doors – Conclusion
The new and improved range of Aluco steel look internal doors are slim, authentic in appearance, beautifully made and with lots of great styling and overall design features. Whilst very much part of the steel look range in aluminium, these are more than just doors designed to provide an aluminium alternative to steel doors. They are a very individual product in their own right. The build quality is excellent, and for those looking for better internal aluminium doors that will last, this is one of the better products on the market and comes highly recommended.
