Dave,

I'm not an expert on fiberglass doors, but here are my observations
and opinions from reading and talking on the subject over the years:

I am under the impression that such doors should not be cut or
even planed. The doors are not one giant slab of fiberglass. I believe
that they are somewhat analogous to the interior slab doors
which many of us have encountered: there is an internal wooden
structure made up of interlinked wooden pieces. I would guess
that the entry door would have some foam insulation between
the wooden members, and then a skin of fiberglass is over the entire
framework.

I suppose that you are limited to a custom door. You could contact
one or two manufacturers and quiz their technical department about
the wisdom of attempting to shorten one of their fiberglass doors.


If I may ask, why do you need to strip and refinish your current wooden
door every few years? I investigated a steel or fiberglass replacement
entry door because of a similar problem with our wooden door. I made
a few changes and the longevity of the wooden door finish has improved
considerably:
1) I replaced our full-view storm door with a new one which has a
built-in screen which rolls down from a hidden mechanism. In
the summer we can create a small (2"-3") screened opening at
the top of the storm door to help vent "greenhouse" heat. I believe
the new storm door was purchased from Home Depot. If not, then
it was bought at Lowes.
2) I switched the door color from black to very bright white. I actually
used Kilz2 as a finish coat. It reflects sunlight extremely well and
it has proven to be quite attractive.

This has helped us in our particular situation very well. The door was
getting baked by the sun every day and the dark color plus the full
glass storm door were creating extremely high temps. Resin would
actually bubble out from the wood and had to be sanded down every
2 years or so. Not any more.

Good luck,
Gideon

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Dave wrote in message ...
I own a home that has a wooden front door that is not the standard 80"
height. I have had to strip and paint this door every few years and am
tired of it. I would like to replace this with a fibreglass door.
However, I would have to order a special size door and this would run
over $700.00. I cannot resize the rough opening due to the fact that the
house is a cement block construction. Why it was built without standard
size doors is anybody's guess. What I would like to know is, is it
possible to get a standard size 36x80 fibreglass door and cut 2" off of
the length? Meaning 1" off of both ends. Would it be that detrimental to
the structure of the door. Any help would be greatly appreciated!