Carlsbad Quality Windows is North San Diego County's top-rated team in French door installation, specializing in hinged inswing pairs, outswing garden doors, and astragal-sealed double doors. We offer fiberglass French door pairs and clad-wood pairs with tempered sidelites.
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Our team provides a new header, frame and sloped sill pan for every pair, delivering wide step-through openings for homes and secure multipoint-locked entries for both residential and commercial projects. Our 13 years in business and the 2-year workmanship warranty on every door support a record of more than 1,730 projects, from one lake-facing French pair to whole rear elevations of hinged doors and transoms.
From setting the astragal so the passive leaf latches flush to reframing a wide slider opening for a pair that swings, our team handles every detail. Serving Carlsbad and neighboring Lake San Marcos, Rancho Santa Fe and Del Mar, we hang each pair, adjust it until both leaves close with one hand, and hose-test the sill before we leave.
Why Carlsbad Quality Windows
Margaret, artificial lake, Lake San Marcos
Lake-facing home with a drafty wood French door pair onto the deck
Investment and duration figures are estimates. Your written quote sets the final price and schedule.
Margaret wanted the old wood French pair between her living room and her deck on the artificial lake at Lake San Marcos to stop letting drafts in. We recommended a fiberglass French door pair with a multipoint lock and a low threshold, so the doors would seal and still be easy to step over. The project was an estimated $2,200 to $3,400 and took an estimated 6 to 8 hours on site. The result is a door pair that seals tight and is easy to step through.
Click or drag the window to open it.A picture window is fixed glass and does not open.
Window style
Frame material
Investment and duration figures are estimates. Your written quote sets the final price and schedule.
Pick a window style and a frame material to see what the windows flanking a new French pair typically cost, how long each frame lasts and its usual warranty. Most owners in Rancho Santa Fe Village and Old Del Mar keep the pair and the windows on either side in one material so the wall reads as a single design.
Two-panel glass slider on a new sill
Hinged glass pair with multipoint lock
Investment and duration figures are estimates. Your written quote sets the final price and schedule.
An outswing pair seals better on a coastal home, because wind-driven rain presses the leaves harder into their weatherstrip, while an inswing pair suits a deck or a narrow patio where doors opening outward would hit furniture or a railing. Outswing doors use hinges with non-removable pins so they stay secure, and the screen goes inside.
Inswing pairs need a taller sill dam to keep water out, and they open into the room, so a family room in Harmony Grove Village or Old Poway needs roughly one leaf's width of clear floor inside. Homes in Leucadia and Cardiff-by-the-Sea that face the onshore wind usually choose outswing.
Every French pair we hang from Carlsbad Village to Eden Gardens has an active leaf you open every day and a passive leaf held by flush bolts at the head and the sill, and the astragal is the strip along the meeting edge that seals the gap between them. A multipoint lock, the hardware on Margaret's lakeside pair, throws bolts into the head, the sill and the strike at once, which pulls a tall pair flat against its seals from top to bottom.
An outswing pair gives the best weather seal, an inswing pair the easiest fit on a deck, and a single hinged door with sidelites the most glass for the least swing room.
| Configuration | Weather seal | Swing room needed | Screen | Best fit near Carlsbad |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Outswing French pair | Best, rain pushes it shut | Outside, clear of rails | Inside | Coastal homes in Solana Beach and Del Mar |
| Inswing French pair | Good with a tall sill dam | Inside, about one leaf wide | Outside | Lake decks like Margaret's at Lake San Marcos |
| Single door with sidelites | Good, one moving leaf | Half the swing of a pair | Either side | Narrow openings in Old Encinitas cottages |
Turning a slider opening into a French pair is a reframe, not a swap: the header is checked or replaced, the rough opening is resized to the pair, and a new sloped sill pan goes down before the frame is set. A slider and its track stay on our sliding patio door replacement page; here, the slider comes out and two hinged leaves go in.
The code steps follow. Every leaf and any glass within 24 inches of the door edge must be tempered under CBC R308, the permit runs under Title 24 so the NFRC label stays on until the inspector signs off, and an outswing pair needs a landing outside that the leaves can clear. Skipping the sill pan is the DIY mistake we see most, and it sends the first winter rain into the subfloor.
French door installation in Carlsbad is estimated at roughly $1,800 to $4,000 per pair, and the frame material, the swing direction, sidelites or transoms and any header work move the price most. A fiberglass pair in an existing door opening sits toward the low end, like Margaret's estimated $2,200 to $3,400 at Lake San Marcos, while a clad-wood pair with sidelites in a reframed slider opening lands near the top.
Converting a slider opening usually adds header and framing work on its own line, and that work stays inside the same estimated 6 to 8 hour visit on most single-story homes in La Costa and Calavera Hills.
These French door figures are estimates and may change once we open the wall and check the header. Your written quote sets the final price and the hanging schedule.
Fiberglass is our default French door frame near the coast, and the narrow sightlines of steel-look and steel frame windows pair well with a slim modern door, while traditional homes in Fairbanks Ranch often match the pair to clad-wood windows on the same wall.
The crew lead who measures your opening is the one who hangs the pair and sets the astragal, so the reveal between the leaves is even on day one. Every door carries our 2-year workmanship warranty, the maker's warranty typically adds 20 years on the glass, and you can meet the team before your estimate.
We install French doors across a 30-mile radius of Carlsbad, including lake-facing homes in Lake San Marcos, estates in Rancho Santa Fe and coastal homes in Del Mar. Encinitas, Poway, Harmony Grove and Bonsall are on our list of the cities we serve.
When a pair is not wide enough, owners step up to a folding or multi-slide door wall that opens most of a room, and homes keeping a slider on another wall can replace it through our patio slider service. For a full wall of fixed glass beside the doors, see floor-to-ceiling glass walls.
A hinged French door pair is typically estimated at $1,800 to $4,000 installed, and your written quote sets the final price after the measure.
Outswing is usually better near the coast because rain presses the doors tighter, and inswing suits decks and patios with little outside clearance.
Yes, most slider openings in homes from Bressi Ranch to Olivenhain can take a French pair once the header is checked and the opening is resized.
Most pairs take an estimated 6 to 8 hours on site, so the opening is closed and locked the same day.
Yes, a pair with a multipoint lock, flush bolts on the passive leaf and non-removable hinge pins is about as secure as a solid entry door, which is why most outswing pairs in Encinitas and Solana Beach get all three.
Yes, every leaf must be tempered under CBC R308, and so must any sidelite or transom glass close to the door edge.
Yes, sidelites and transoms can be added when the wall has room for a wider header, a common request in New Encinitas and Fairbanks Ranch Country Club homes, and their glass is tempered where code requires it.
Request a free estimate, and we will measure the opening, check the header and the swing room and send a written, itemized quote.
The process
We check every frame, sill and the stucco around it, then laser-measure each opening for the unit that goes in it.
Frame material, glass package, label values and install method arrive in writing before anything is ordered.
Each window is set on a sloped sill pan, flashed and sealed, with the NFRC sticker left on for the inspector.
We open and lock every window and door with you, and the city signs off the Title 24 permit.
Services
Where we work
Homeowners get a free measure at the house. Boards, managers and contractors can send plans or an opening count for a bid.
Calls only, we do not receive text messages.
