Here is what the wall build up looks like when using one of our concealed frame doors:

Ever since people started using concealed frame doors there has been the question; will the walls crack.

The reason this question comes up is because on a traditional timber door, there is an architrave that covers up the first section of wall and any gaps or cracking are likely to occur behind this architrave.

With concealed frame doors, there are no architraves. This is what gives it a 'Concealed' and contemporary appearance. With our product. there is also no shadow gap, only the 3mm gap between the frame and the door. However this is not necessarily typical of all concealed frame doors.

Most concealed doors, or jib doors as they are sometimes called, use an integral plaster flange that allows you to plaster over the frame and up to the door leaf. It is within this area that cracking is most likely to occure.

Why does cracking occur?

It occurs when the frame of the door and the wall that it is fixed to move at different rates as a result of the wall moving over time or the frame moving (likely when the door is slammed). As a result the plaster comes under stress and cracks.

How do you stop it from happening?

To stop it, you need to make sure that there is no way for the frame and the wall to move independently of each other. If the integral plaster flange of the door frame is flexible, this will be very hard to achieve. If it is solid, this can be achieved by increasing the frequency of the fixings through the said plaster flange. The result is the frame becomes and integral part of the wall, so if the wall moves; the frames moves with it, and vice versa.

You will need to seek guidance from the manufacturers installation instructions to find out how frequently the frame will need to be fixed. As a guide, our concealed frame doors should be screwed to the wall every 200mm and fixings should be doubled up in the corners.