When it comes to choosing the best aluminium internal doors, these are usually an easier purchase than buying replacement doors or aluminium windows. Simpler in construction and without the need for certification around security, energy efficiency or weather protection, internal doors transform property interiors and come in several types and designs. Here’s who makes the best aluminium internal doors and why.
The best Aluminium Internal doors at a glance
Best Overall Internal Aluminium Doors
Aluco Elite
The most convincing aluminium internal doors if you want to get as close as possible to the steel look. With hinged and sliding doors, even a minimalist internal door. Aluco designs and produces their own proprietary system and it’s superb.
Best Internal Aluminium Doors for Most Homeowners
Smart Systems Aluspace
Aluspace remains the best choice for aluminium internal doors both in terms of price and availability. Hinged, Sliding, Pivot Doors with matching screens. Strong steel-look aesthetics without premium pricing.
Best Internal Sliding System
Jack Aluminium ID30
With both sliding and telescopic sliding doors, Jack Aluminium offers up to five panels sliding one way or eight panels as bi-parting doors. Recommended when you what sliding doors for larger openings.
Best Frameless Internal Doors
Sunflex UK SF System
Sunflex UK SF Internal doors and partitions providing slide and turn, sliding, open corner and bespoke configurations, including a heritage style. Minimal framing, superb quality and no vertical framing.
Best Value Internal Aluminium Doors
Smart Systems Aluspace
With the most complete range of products and a substantial fabricator network, as well as many companies rebranding Aluspace as their own, Aluspace is now great value.
Best Designer System
Rimadesio Siparium
Elegant, expensive, with designs, detailing and running gear at an altogether different level. Rimadesio provides internal doors and screens for multiple uses and room types.
What About Other Internal Aluminium Door Brands?
There are now numerous internal aluminium door products and types available in the UK.
Some are dedicated and proprietary systems, designed from the ground up. Others are rebrands of many of the brands mentioned here. Then you have products which are simpler in design, including kit doors and products available online, that we do not recommend as explained in this article.
The systems featured in this guide are the products we believe stand out in their respective categories. That does not automatically mean a product not listed here is inferior.
If you have been quoted for a steel look window or door not featured in this article, get in touch. We can usually identify who designed it, whether it is based on another system and how it compares with competing products.
Over the last 15 years, the Door and Window Experts Website has been consistent. There is no bad door and window on the market. Even the cheaper products, well made and correctly fitted will serve you well. Where they differ is who makes them, the overall supply chain and the quality of the installation. Aesthetics, overall sight lines, engineering, the quality of the hardware/components, the choices available and their brand perception are other areas where products differ.
Our advice is impartial, independent and based on nearly four decades in the glazing industry.
How the Door and Window Experts Website Reviews Products
Nick Dardalis has worked in the glazing industry since 1989 and regularly visit manufacturers, systems companies, fabricators and installers throughout the UK and Europe.
Products are reviewed in showrooms and actual installations. The technical documentation is studied and feedback gathered from the companies designing, manufacturing, installing these. This provides a practical understanding of how products differ in the real world beyond brochure specifications and marketing claims.
What Makes a Good Internal Aluminium Door?
Refinement. The better designed systems look and feel refined. Some are provided without glass for on-site glazing, better products are made in the factory around the glass, with less rattle as a result.
Importantly it is how these doors feel. The hardware, overall quality and design should produce a door that feels like steel. In other words, solid, with a reassuring weight and feel and closing onto a quality frame and closing positively.
The types of aluminium internal doors available today don’t require the specifications or certifications of exterior-grade doors other than where doors need to provide fire protection. As a result, you don’t need to look out for security specifications, U-Values or weather performance standards applicable to exterior doors.
Therefore, buying new aluminium internal doors is very much about the type of door you want, styling, price and of course, confidence in the company you’re dealing with.
The best systems look convincing from across the street as well as close up. When comparing steel look doors and windows, we recommend paying attention to:
- Corner and frame joints
- Glazing bar application
- Sash styling with rolled aesthetic preferably
- Handle quality and feel
- Authenticity compared to steel
- Slim sightlines
- How it closes up against the frame
- How the door feels
- Overall appearance
Best Overall Internal Aluminium Doors
Aluco Elite
Aluco Elite is currently the most authentic internal aluminium door system in the steel look, available in the UK. This is a luxury product, sitting at the upper end of the market, but for quality, authenticity, and exclusivity, they are hard to beat.
Aluco have designed their own products, only they make them and they are fitted via a nationwide network of approved installers. Elite is so carefully thought out, it is hard to see what is missing from their internal door collection. The profile design, glazing bar proportions, incredible hardware quality and how the doors look and feel in use.
What makes choosing Aluco even better for your home, is that it is presently the only UK company offering a complete collection of industrial, Art-Deco, heritage metal-inspired products. As well as their interior collection of doors, the company also manufactures windows, external doors, patio doors and even a steel look front door.
All their products share the same design language, allowing homeowners to create a genuinely cohesive steel inspired or heritage home.
Best Internal Doors for Most Homeowners
Smart Systems Aluspace
Smart Systems is the UK’s largest aluminium systems company and the Aluspace product is now mature and established. Aluspace isn’t as refined or as bespoke as Aluco. However, it’s cheaper and will suit those with a lower budget.
Multiple manufacturers make Aluspace and it benefits from hinged sliding and even pivoting doors. It’s easy for fabricators to make and simple for installers to fit. It’s a great all-round product.
Many manufacturers rebrand it under their own brand names. It’s widely used, tried and tested and reliable. Just make sure you know who makes it for your installer, because the sheer number of aluminium manufacturers making this product means that product quality is not the same.
Origin OI-30 Internal Doors
Origin makes some outstanding products with an impressive dealer network of several hundred across the UK. The OI-30 is a lovely looking door, and it certainly deserves 2nd mention for being one of the best internal doors for most homeownwers.
The are quite expensive compared to other brands that offer near-identical features. Origin are very much about promoting a lifestyle with their products and you often need to look beyond the outstanding marketing language and do like-for-like comparisons.
OI-30 is a well-made door that will enhance any interior, but it is worth comparing it to the many other internal door brands available. Here is the review of the OI-30 internal door, available as single doors, double doors and matching screens.
Cortizo Design 35
Cortizo are better known for their Cor-Vision Sliding Doors, but now the Cortizo Design 35 is a dedicated interior divider. Profiles are 35mm deep with a visible section of 32mm on fixed units and 58mm on the opening door. Glass is available from 4mm to 12mm. What’s good about this system is the doors that comfortably go up to 90kg in weight, 1200mm wide and up to 2500mm high.
Interestingly with the Design 35 is the the automatic drop seal. The door base is designed to take one, which makes this the only product in this comparison that can close the gap under the door, doing away with the weak point of these doors when better acoustics are required. It is still single glazed, so it is not an acoustic door, but the difference is there. There is no slider, pivot or bifold, but overall a very attractive and multi-functional aluminium internal door and screening system.
Korniche Internal Partitions
Korniche is better known for roof lanterns and bifolds, but their internal glass partition is a credible system in its own right. Pleasing sightlines with single and double door options, accompanies by screening if required.
Glass options are 4mm toughened, 6.8mm laminated or acoustic laminated. Hardware is better than you would expect at the price, with magnetic locking, lift-to-lock handles, customisable hinges and a lift lever with shoot bolt gearbox on the French doors. Matt black is standard, with RAL 9005, RAL 7016 anthracite grey and RAL 9910 white alongside bespoke powder coating in matt, gloss, satin, textured, dual colour or anodised. Their SpeedBead system is designed to speed up glazing on site with no measuring or drilling, but these are for the installer only, homeowners don’t care how long something takes to glaze.
Korniche is better known as a trade brand and it’s not easy to find these products in a showroom. But, they are well-priced, of good quality and the company that makes them already has a solid reputation in supplying the trade.
Best Internal Sliding Doors
Jack Aluminium Systems ID30
With both a sliding and a telescopic sliding door option, Jack Aluminium’s ID30 offers two great solutions. The challenge will be finding people that sell the product. The telescopic door is impressive, providing a bigger clear opening than conventional internal sliding doors.
Jack Aluminium has a stronger reputation in the commercial market and it’s trying to grow in the retail market. Get in touch and we can help with where you can view the product and obtain quotations.
Best Frameless Glass Internal Doors
Sunflex UK SF20 and SF22
For internal doors with maximum glass Sunflex provides an exceptional range of products in both hinged, sliding and slide and turn.
Their products use aluminium for the outer frame of the door set, combined with aluminium at the top and bottom rails. The sides of the door panels are all glass, single safety glass with polished edges. Beautifully made and promising a very long service life thanks to their German engineering and design.
Frameless Glass Curtains (FGC)
FGC in Kent, design and manufacture their own range of frameless glass doors for internal use. They com in hinged, sliding and slide and turn configurations.
Like Sunflex and others in a similar design, they use toughened or laminated safety glass with smooth edges. The glass then attaches to suitable ‘patch fittings’ for the hinges, metal door locks and a choice of door handles. These are mainly available in the South of England, manufactured and supplied by the company.
Solarlux Internal Aluminium Doors
Solarlux approach all their products from a different direction to everyone else. The Solarlux name is internationally recognised as one of the very best. For their internal doors the same products can work inside the home or commercial building. At the same time the same products can create all-glass balcony and façade systems
Proline T is a slide and turn system taking 6mm to 12mm toughened or heat-soaked glass, with a visible profile of 39mm high by 30mm deep, panels to 65kg and elements to 3000mm high by 1000mm wide. Proline T Mega takes 12mm to 18mm, laminated at 12 and 18, with a 60mm by 30mm visible profile and panels to 80kg. Proline S is a bottom running slider whose driver function opens up to five panes on a flush or standard track, in 8mm or 10mm toughened glass.
SL 25 XXL is a top running slide and turn made for internal slide and stack doors, 8mm to 12mm heat-soaked toughened, panels to 65kg, with the glass fixed in line along aluminium profiles top and bottom and no vertical panel profiles at all.
Three things set Solarlux internal doors apart. The 3000mm element height beats every dedicated internal system in this article. The floor tracks are designed to be accessible, which no other product here addresses in the same way.
Proline T Mega’s 18mm laminated glass is in a different league from the 8mm to 12mm single panes everywhere else, which is why Solarlux talk about sound insulation when nobody else does. The trade-off the higher price, made in Germany and on long lead times. If it wasn’t for these factors, Solarlux would be at the top of this category. A visit to their showroom is well worth it.
Best Designer System
Rimadesio Siparium
There is a category above everything else in this article and it is Italian. Rimadesio Siparium is expensive, and if your budget reaches it the result is a level beyond anything else here.
What the money buys is the things you touch and look at every day. The sections are finer, the running gear is quieter and smoother, the finishes are better, and the engineering tolerances mean these doors work for years and years. Rimadesio also make sliding systems, wardrobes and partitions in the same design and aesthetic as well as bespoke styles.
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Other Internal Aluminium Doors
As you do your research, there are also products coming onto the market by less well known System companies, keen to enter this space. These are also perfectly adequate products, although not considered as well designed or as refined as the brands mentioned in the product categories.
Best is of course always subjective as the ideal doors for you can depend on many factors. You can also consider:
Aluna+ from Alunet Systems
Aluna+ is Alunet’s steel look interior door and room divider system, available as single and double swing doors, glazed room dividers, fixed panes and corner configurations, with sliding doors listed as coming soon. Swing and sliding doors go up to 1200mm wide by 2500mm tall, which is wider than most, and glazed room dividers up to 2000mm by 2500mm.
Alunet market everything they make on how easy it is to fabricate, how little stock a fabricator has to hold and how quickly it goes in. That matters to the company making your doors. It tells a homeowner nothing about whether the product is any good. They also use the word luxury a great deal, and on the evidence the product does not sit at that level alongside Aluco, Origin, Sunflex or Solarlux.
The glazing is the clearest sign: Aluna+ accepts 4mm and 6mm glass only, so there is no laminated or acoustic option at all, where Korniche offer acoustic laminate and Cortizo go to 12mm. We would also treat the claim that the adjustable hinges deliver a fit and forget installation with some caution. No moving product is fit and forget. Every door might need adjusting or servicing at some point, and a system sold on the promise that it will not is setting an expectation it cannot meet.
Deceuninck Encasa
Deceuninck is an established system company, better known for its uPVC products but with an aluminium range. Encasa is their internal door and screening offering. Again this is a product marketed more at the fabricator than the homeowner. I have seen this product in Europe and its very well designed.
Encasa steel look internal glazing system, is built on the same modular platform as their external Decalu range so a fabricator can make both without retooling. The profiles are 34mm, the system is dry glazed with pre-inserted gaskets, and it can be formatted as a hinged, sliding, pivot or pocket door, or as a fixed screen.
Almost everything published about Encasa is aimed at fabricators rather than buyers, but if you can find it, it’s worth considering.
Exlabesa Xladeco
Xladeco is Exlabesa’s modular internal system, made in Doncaster and sold through fabricators. A 30mm frame and sash profile, a 40mm structural mullion for large screens and a 25mm Georgian bar for doors up to a metre wide, which is a real profile rather than a bar stuck on the glass.
Xladeco is a very well thought out system and there are fabricators taking it on. With sliding, fixed, pivoting and hinged doors, it’s also quite a comprehensive product. It’s best feature is its glazing capacity which does make it a contender when you want better acoustics.
What to know where brands use the word Crittall
It is very important to understand that none of the products here are Crittall Style, Crittall Replacements or Crittall Look. Only the genuine brand offers this and the name is also a registered trademark.
Crittall Windows Ltd rightly issue letters against people making claims that their products are in any way similar. They are not. Crittall Doors are steel and all the products mentioned here are aluminium and you are not comparing like-for-like.
Helping you buy better aluminium internal doors
There are luxury brands of aluminium internal doors such as the Italian systems. Aluminium is now a growing market in internal doors without a fire rating. Don’t disregard steel or timber products. These have been used internally longer and may actually provide the doors your project needs.
Remember, that many suppliers will offer you the same doors they’d fit outside. There’s nothing wrong with going down this route. You’ll probably have to go with features you don’t need such as double glazing, multipoint locking systems and more sealing. However, these doors will address acoustic requirements. Designed and made right with an installer that understands how to supply these, you’ll also get a very reliable product. Single and French Doors having the option of no threshold at all, sliding and folding doors chosen with a suitable track are all worthy products.
With thousands of suppliers all over the UK, it’s not possible to list every single one, so our article here explains some of the best known and popular brands. You can get in touch to ask a question, find out more information, local suppliers or get product advice. And we can sense check any quotations you’ve had from other suppliers.
