Free in-home measure and quote - PGT, CGI and CWS impact lines compared on your actual openings, style by style
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AfterFast, Reliable Door Replacement Across Santa Monica
Door replacement in Santa Monica runs $900 to $4,800 for most homes, with exterior entry systems landing between $2,200 and $4,800. Interior doors start lower, typically $350 to $900 per door including labor. The price hinges on whether you’re in a flatland bungalow near Wilshire or a hillside canyon home that has to meet wildfire hardening rules. Call Juniper Windows & Doors at (682) 281-2168 and we’ll give you a written line-item quote before a single screw turns. Sean Mackey leads our crew, and every job is backed by our 365-Day Done Right Promise.
Why Juniper Windows & Doors Is Santa Monica’s Preferred Door Replacement Company
We work in Santa Monica every week, so we know what marine-layer moisture does to a fir jamb on a 1950s bungalow off Pico and what design pressure a coastal wind exposure off Ocean Avenue actually requires. That local familiarity means we scope the job correctly the first time, not after we’ve opened the wall. Our Door Replacement team arrives with a locked written quote, a live arrival time you can track, and before-and-after photos so you see exactly what changed.
Santa Monica homeowners appreciate that we don’t play games with pricing. Every quote stays fixed from the first measurement to the final inspection. If we find rot in the rough opening or a jamb that’s out of square once we pull the old door, we show you photos and explain the cost before we touch it. We also answer our phones with a real person, 24/7. No callback queue. When you search for Door Replacement in Santa Monica, you’ll find a lot of generic options. We run on the Relay Standard: book in a tap, live arrival time, written price, digital invoice you can pay from a link. Dispatch and scheduling are coordinated from the brand’s Los Angeles office; crews serve Santa Monica locally.
Interior Door Installation in Santa Monica
Interior Door Installation in Santa Monica usually runs $350 to $900 per door, and most homes have multiple doors worth replacing at once. On a 1950s or 1960s bungalow in Sunset Park or a mid-rise condo near the Third Street Promenade, that means swapping hollow-core slabs for solid MDF or wood doors, checking hinge alignment, and trimming doors to fit frames that have shifted over decades. We quote each door individually in writing, and the price includes hardware install, hinge mortising, and disposal of the old door.
Slab Swaps on Older Santa Monica Frames
If your existing jamb is square and sound, we can keep it and replace just the door slab. On pre-1980 homes, the existing frames are often salvageable, but we check with a level and winding sticks before we agree to it. A slab swap is the single most cost-effective interior door job we do in Santa Monica, usually under $500 per door depending on slab material and hardware.
Pre-Hung Units Where Frames Have Moved
When floors have settled or stud walls have racked, the old frame won’t hold a new door without binding. We install pre-hung units, most often on remodels in the Ocean Park and Mid-City neighborhoods. Pre-hung installation adds $150 to $250 per door but gives you a frame that’s actually square, with shims set and trim reattached cleanly.
Door Installers in Santa Monica
Door Installers in Santa Monica have to handle more than finish carpentry. Exterior work here often crosses into structural territory: rot repair, shear-wall fastening, sill-pan flashing, and wildfire hardening on hillside lots. Our job starts with measuring the rough opening, checking for plumb, and confirming the existing header is adequate. Then we build a written scope that lists the door, hardware, weatherproofing, permits if required, and the labor to get it all done right.
Coastal Exposure Hardware and Fasteners
Salt air from the Pacific eats cheap steel hinges and threshold screws within a couple of winters. We specify stainless or coated fasteners on every exterior install in Santa Monica, and we don’t upcharge for them as an “add-on.” It’s just what the local environment demands. We also check design pressure ratings when the opening faces a prevailing west wind, especially on the streets closer to the bluffs.
Hillside Wildfire Zones
Homes in the Santa Monica Mountains foothills above San Vicente Boulevard fall under Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone rules. Exterior doors there have to resist ember intrusion and meet Chapter 7A-style hardening standards. We install assemblies rated for that zone and document everything for the inspection. Flatland coastal homes around Main Street don’t trigger the same requirements, but we still flash every sill so marine-layer moisture can’t rot the threshold.
Trusted Brands We Service in Santa Monica
Juniper Windows & Doors handles our Window Installation in Santa Monica alongside Therma-Tru, PGT, CGI, and CWS door products, and we maintain local inventory of common replacement parts, thresholds, sweeps, and hardware for those lines. That means if you need a hinge set or an astragal after we install a door, we’re not ordering from a warehouse across the country. Therma-Tru entry systems are popular on the traditional Spanish-influenced homes across Santa Monica, and PGT and CGI impact-rated doors make sense on windy exposures near the beach. We’ll recommend the right product for your specific opening, exposure, and budget, then write the price down before work starts. Sean Mackey oversees every install personally.
Common Door Replacement Problems We See in Santa Monica Homes
- Marine-layer moisture rot. Fog and salt air push into jamb bottoms and threshold corners, especially on older wood-framed bungalows in North of Montana and Sunset Park. We rebuilt a Therm-Tru entry on a 1950s bungalow in North of Montana after the jamb had rotted from moisture wicking up through the threshold. We rebuilt the rough opening, installed an impact-rated entry system with low-E insulated glass, and flashed the sill so the same corner wouldn’t fail again.
- Seasonal binding from out-of-square jambs. Many pre-1980 Santa Monica homes have framing that moved over decades. Reusing that out-of-square jamb causes the new door to bind seasonally as the framing expands and contracts, which is why we often recommend a pre-hung replacement rather than a slab swap.
- Inland-spec doors on coastal exposures. A door ordered without impact-rated glazing or the correct design pressure for a west-facing opening will flex, leak air, and eventually fail the weatherstrip. We spec every exterior door to the site’s exposure, not a generic Southern California default.
- Thresholds buried in original stucco. On many older Santa Monica homes, the original threshold was set into the stucco with no sill pan underneath. That traps water and rots the subfloor within a few winters. We cut back the stucco, install a proper pan, and flash the opening so the repair is permanent.
Pricing for Door Replacement in Santa Monica, CA
Here are honest Santa Monica numbers. Interior door installation runs $350 to $900 per door, slab swaps on existing frames are $275 to $500 per door, and pre-hung interior units run $500 to $1,100 per door. Exterior entry doors land between $2,200 and $4,800, with impact-rated or wildfire-rated assemblies at the higher end. French and patio door replacements run $1,800 to $5,500 depending on size, glazing, and whether the opening needs structural work. What moves the price: rot repair in the rough opening, permitting and inspection, hardware finish, and whether the door is standard or custom-sized. We write every price down before work starts, and we don’t change it at the door. Call (682) 281-2168 for a free estimate, or request one online.
We Also Serve Cities Near Santa Monica
We work in Santa Monica and the surrounding coastal and westside communities. Our crews regularly cover Marina del Rey, Culver City, Beverly Hills, and El Segundo, so if you’re just outside the city line, we can still get your door measured, quoted, and installed on a written fixed price.
Serving Santa Monica, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Santa Monica area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Door Replacement in Santa Monica
Yes, exterior door replacements in Santa Monica require a permit when the opening is altered, the framing is modified, or the door’s location on a hillside lot triggers wildfire hardening requirements. Like-for-like swaps of the same size often don’t need one, but we confirm with the City of Santa Monica permit counter before we quote. We pull permits, schedule inspections, and pass them before we call the job done. Call (682) 281-2168 and we’ll tell you exactly what applies to your address during the free estimate.
It’s the marine layer and seasonal humidity. Wood-framed homes across Santa Monica absorb moisture from fog and ocean air, and jambs expand when the air is wet. If the jamb is even slightly out of square, the door binds. The fix is usually a pre-hung replacement with the opening re-squared and shimmed, not just planing the door edge. We see this most often on older bungalows in Ocean Park and North of Montana.
Rot in the rough opening. On exterior jobs, once we pull the old door, we often find water-damaged framing under the threshold or behind the jamb. We photograph it, show you exactly what we found, and give you a written change order before any repair work happens. If it’s just a cracked jamb or a rusted sill, no change. The price you signed is the price you pay. Our 365-Day Done Right Promise covers the entire installation for a full year, parts and labor, in writing.
You can, but we don’t recommend it. Most big-box exterior doors are built to inland specifications. On a west-facing wall near the coast, they’ll flex under wind load, leak air, and the cheap hardware will corrode from salt exposure within a few seasons. If you’re in the hillside fire zone above San Vicente, a standard door won’t meet ember-resistance requirements at all. We spec PGT, CGI, or Therma-Tru doors rated for the actual exposure at your address. It costs more upfront, but you’re not replacing it again in five years.
Most Santa Monica door replacements take 2 to 4 weeks from first measurement to final inspection. Custom or impact-rated doors add 2 to 6 weeks for manufacturing. Installation itself is usually one day for interior work and one to two days for exterior entries, plus inspection time if a permit was pulled. We coordinate everything through the Relay Standard, so you get a live arrival time and photo updates as the work progresses. Call (682) 281-2168 for a free written estimate and a realistic schedule for your street.
Written by Sean Mackey, Owner at Juniper Windows & Doors, serving Santa Monica since 2001.