Dream Home on a Budget – Part 1: Tips to Select Affordable Doors and Windows for Your Home

Are you looking to build your dream home with fewer leaks from your pocket? Are you searching for methods to reduce the construction cost without compromising the quality and aesthetics of the desired home? Then this article is for you.

If you don’t plan well, cost overrun can hit you hard, especially if you have taken a home loan to finance your dream project. Therefore, here are some cost-saving tips to save you from these headaches. In this article, you will get information regarding the average estimates of doors and windows, especially budget options.

Selecting Doors for your budget home

Doors are the main component of a home which contributes about 5-6% of total construction cost. This discussion includes the entry doors, bathroom, and room doors in a house. In the marketplace, they are available mainly in three materials – wood, steel, and fiberglass. Let’s see which material suits the best for each type.

Entry Doors

Of course, the entry door creates a good first impression of your home. Therefore, without a doubt, it has to be beautiful. But your front door also needs to be much more than beautiful. It faces all climatic conditions and environments and hence it needs to be extra safe, durable, and sound insulating.

Considering all this, we recommend you choose steel doors. They fall into the affordable budget without compromising on aesthetics and quality. They are available in a variety of designs, styles, and sizes. Make sure to finalize the size of the steel door at the time of brick masonry to provide a proper gap in walls. Otherwise, masonry costs will be added during installation.

Besides, the back door, and balcony doors are also listed under entry doors. You can choose the same material for all. If you aren’t sure, here are six benefits of using steel doors and windows.

As per current market rates, the cost of the wood door is twice that of the steel door. You can buy a fully finished steel door and frame with all accessories and installation starting from ₹14,000/- in the market.  

Bathroom Doors

Bathroom doors are available with different innovative materials in the marketplace like PVC, FRP, UPVC, ABS, aluminium doors etc. Each material has got its own characteristics. As we are looking for a more affordable option, the PVC door is a go-to one. Because of its resistance to water and sunlight, it is a durable solution for the purpose.

PVC doors and frames are available in a price range from ₹2,500/- to ₹7,500/- including all services and accessories. All alternative products cost double or more than that at the same time.

Room Doors

Room doors are also available in a vast range of options. We can consider two options for the budget homes – High-grade PVC Doors and uPVC doors. Both are similar visually, but many specifications of UPVC costs a bit higher than PVC Doors. Cost of the room door and frame will be around ₹6,000/- to ₹8,000/-

Selecting Windows for your budget home

Windows and ventilators also hold another 6-8% of construction costs. Here we will cover two components of windows – frames and shutters.

Window Frames

Window Frames are available with a variety of materials like wood, uPVC, steel, concrete, etc. We have to also assess the cost of window grills with the window frames.

After compiling the quality and characteristics of each type of frame material, we conclude that concrete window frames are the best suitable option for budget houses. But concrete windows must have good steel reinforcement and should be made with the quality manufacture.

An important thing to be noted with this product is that the positions of hinges must be made with wooden blocks or high-density plastic blocks. This is to avoid the issue of losing grip for screws in the future. This product can be developed using sanding, using a grit 80 paper and priming using epoxy followed by wooden finish enamel painting.

This will provide wooden finish frames at reasonable prices. We can use mild steel pipes of normal MS flats and small sizes of rods as the grill option for the same. Apply primer on the grill before installation as this will reduce labour hours during final painting. The final cost for a window panel with grill will be around ₹1200-1500.

Window Shutters

In the case of  Window Shutters, available options are wood, steel, aluminum, and PVC shutters. A good option for the budget home shutter is a wooden finished aluminum window shutter frame having a width of about 7.5 cm. Because of that, the look will be similar to the wooden finish and the powder-coated shades will resemble the wooden species.

Aluminum is also very durable. You should not confuse this with the narrow aluminum frame available in the market. This item will cost nearly ₹1300-₹1800 according to the shade and type of glass used.

Summary

As discussed above, if you are constructing your dream home on a budget, you can go with the following materials for doors and windows to keep control of the cost:

1. Entry Doors – Steel
2. Bathroom Doors – PVC
3. Room Doors – High-Grade PVC Doors or uPVC doors
4. Window Frames – Concrete
5. Window Shutters – Aluminium (width of 7.5cm)

Hope you found this article useful in your planning. This is first in a series of articles on affordable building materials. Share your thoughts below.