Designing Your South African Home with A Pivot Door: The Beginner's Guide

Enhancing the Aesthetic & Functionality of Your Home With Pivot Doors

Pivot doors are increasingly popular in South African homes due to their unique aesthetic and functional benefits. They not only offer modern sleekness to any building but also provide practical advantages such as space efficiency and the ability to support larger, heavier doors than the doors traditional side hinges can handle. This allows homeowners to install bold, dramatic doors, making a strong visual statement. In this guide, we will briefly discuss what makes pivot doors popular and explore the three most popular materials used for pivot doors, helping you better understand your options so that you can seamlessly integrate them into your home design.

What Exactly is a Pivot Door?

What makes a door a pivot door is all in the opening mechanism which allows the door to rotate on pivots that are usually installed at the top and bottom of a door frame. This design results in the door opening with a smooth swinging motion and offers a sleek, modern look. These doors have become popular due to their modern aesthetic and slight dramatic effect, the pivoting mechanism of these doors are also commonly manufactured in such a way that they can support larger, heavier doors than traditional hinges can, thus making them increasingly popular in custom homes and high-end commercial spaces.

The pivoting mechanism of pivot doors are generally made by placing pivot points - usually about one third of the way from the edge of the door - at the top and bottom of the door frame. These pivot points allow the door to rotate around a central axis, which allows for a smooth, seamless operation. The pivoting hardware is usually hidden and can support doors with large, heavy panels that would be somewhat impractical for traditional hinges.

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The Top 5 Benefits of Pivot Doors

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• Aesthetic Appeal - Pivot doors’ number 1 benefit according to many homeowners are their visual impact and modern look. With their dramatic opening motion they tend to serve well as statement pieces, mixing robust engineering and artistic design to create gorgeous functional additions to any building. The range of doors you can choose from when it comes to pivot doors allows for anyone to make a statement with their entryway that perfectly aligns with their style and tastes.
  
  

• Space Efficiency - Due to pivot doors’ mechanism, they rotate around a central (or near-central) axis. This results in a door that requires less clearance to open and close. Traditional side-hinged doors usually open with a much larger swing. This also helps your entryway flow seamlessly with the rest of your home’s interior.
  
  

• Support for Heavier Doors - Due to the robust engineering of the pivot hardware commonly used for pivot doors, giving these doors the option of being much larger and heavier than traditional hinged doors. The top and bottom pivots are designed in such a way that they distribute the weight of the door they’re supporting more effectively, resulting in the possibility to install larger solid wood, glass panel or aluminium doors.
  
  

• Durability & Security - Pivot doors sport inherent durability and robust security due to the high quality materials generally used for these doors. The heavy doors are usually made with good materials, resulting in a door that is quite resistant to weather. Pivot doors also give you the option to incorporate advanced and/or strong security features in your door, resulting in enhanced security for your home.
  
  

• Enhanced Natural Light - With larger pivot doors you have the option to incorporate large window panels into your door’s design, which allows more natural light to flood into your home. This feature can both enhance aesthetic appeal and improve your building’s energy efficiency due to not needing artificial light during the day.

Choosing the Right Pivot Door for Your Home

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Selecting the right pivot door for your building may seem like a daunting task, but here’s a brief overview of different styles and what to consider to get you started on the right path.

Pick Your Material

There are a few materials available for pivot doors, but here are the 3 most common options as well as their pros and cons:

Wooden Pivot Doors offer warm, traditional aesthetics and can be made from various types of wood, such as: Pine; Saligna and Meranti. Wood is a fantastically versatile material that can be customised to fit most styles with various stains and finishes. However, wooden pivot doors, like most wooden objects, are susceptible to moisture, weather and other forms of damage, meaning that they need regular maintenance to keep them looking pristine.

Glass Pivot Doors are a great choice for buildings with a modern aesthetic as they create a stylishly elegant entryway with loads of natural light that will flood into the building. Although you get tempered glass that is quite durable, these doors are unfortunately vulnerable to breakage. They also don’t maximise privacy, and if privacy is a concern, you may want to consider a sandblasted or mirrored finish, allowing light to filter through while still providing some much-needed privacy. Glass also tends to become quite cold, which may reduce the temperature of your building in the cold seasons.

Aluminium Pivot Doors are brilliant for those wanting a clean, industrial appearance. These doors are very strong and require very little maintenance, they can also be customised with various colours and finishes. aluminium pivot doors can, however, be much heavier than the other two options and they are also generally more expensive due to installation and sometimes needing custom hardware.

There are also size, proportions and specific styles to consider, but we suggest you consult with a professional before making any final decisions as pivot doors, with their large designs, can be very difficult to incorporate yourself.

Incorporating Pivot Doors into South African Home Design

Interior Pivot Doors

Pivot doors work beautifully as interior doors, serving both aesthetic and functional purposes. They are excellent for use as room dividers, creating distinct living spaces while maintaining a seamless, open, and airy feel in your home. The unique opening mechanism of pivot doors allows for creative and bold designs, accommodating larger and heavier doors that can serve as dramatic statement pieces, or sleek, modern designs to maintain a clean, elegant interior space. This versatility makes pivot doors an attractive option for enhancing the interior design of any South African home.

Exterior Pivot Doors

Pivot doors are primarily used as external doors, specifically for patio doors and main entrance doors. Their stylishly dramatic appearance creates a strong first impression, boosting the curb appeal and adding a sense of luxury to the exterior aesthetic of any home. With the variety of materials, finishes and general customisations available for pivot doors, homeowners can really be creative in creating a strong statement with their external doors. The use of heavier, more robust materials make pivot doors very resilient against the weather and other forms of wear and tear, making them ideal for South African homes and the array of extreme weather conditions that they may have to face.

In conclusion, integrating pivot doors into your home design offers a range of benefits, from modern, sleek aesthetics and space efficiency to the option to use large panels and heavy materials for a robust door with a bold and imposing statement. They can be used effectively in both an exterior and internal context, enhancing the visual appeal of any building. We highly recommend you explore all options available to you in terms of material, size and design to find the pivot door that speaks to you the most. We also recommend you consult with a professional in order to ensure proper installation and that your pivot door aligns well with your building and your creative vision. Explore our other blogs on topics related to doors, windows and home improvement. If you’re interested in a pivot door for your home or building, feel free to take a look at our range of premium-quality pivot doors today.