And this image shows the doors on the floor plan.

I appreciate any help you can offer.

Just last week we met with our builder and the window rep and were convinced to have our uncovered French doors swing out rather than in for weatherproofing reasons. I do not recall the details but they made a pretty compelling case.

I'm sure one of the experts here will be able to provide a good explanation, or you also might try over on the Windows forum (they do doors too).

Good luck!

i don't know the theory, but i recall asking our architect to change our french doors to swing out into the back porch. he said no because french doors are supposed to swing in. so i said ok and moved on. BUT, our french door open to a covered space. he didn't mention covered vs uncovered, however

nice rear elevation, btw. but have you considered square columns?

Try the article in this link.

Here is a link that might be useful: Fine Homebuilding article re exterior door swings

French doors without a covered porch are inherent leakers due to the amount of moving parts. In order to help eliminate this potential you would need to go to a french patio type door as the threshold has a better sill weatherstrip. The downside to this is that the sill will be raised approximately two inches and would need to stepped over as opposed to a traditional entry door with a fairly flat threshold.

We got Marvin Integrity french doors. The have wood on the inside and fiberglass on the outside. We really like them. Have you seen this line?

Carol

P.S. I agree that the window forum guys have good insights on this subject.

Integrity French doors have what I was referring to as the "raised sill", that is the way on a patio door they help ensure weathertightness. The downside is you have to step over it as opposed to walk through it. Here is the Integrity or similar to a typical patio door sill

And here is your typical entrance door sill

Another thing to think of is that the stationary doors will have no hinges. Outswing doors will have hinges on the outside (giving a more uniform look on the inside), and inswing will have them on the inside. The thresholds may also be different, unless you put false thresholds in where the stationary doors are (they may come with them). We have one set of inswing doors in our breakfast room and single outswing doors onto the screened porch from our breakfast room. The outswing doors are set to the exterior of the jamb so the thresholds are different, as the doors are more recessed. It doesn't bother me because they are on different walls and no one will notice but me.

Although our french doors swing out, we did it because there would be no room for them to swing in without affecting furniture arrangement. There is always a security concern though! Even though there are supposedly tamper proof hinges, there was recently a burglary in my parents neighborhood where the thieves took the door off the hinges - I can only presume the hinges were outside and the door was an outswing door.

Here is the difference between the inswing and outswing doors -

Outswing wider threshold, hinges outside

Inswing, narrower threshold and hinges on inside

Pictures are not showing up. The outswing door will use a bumper type saddle and the hinges are NRP or Non-removeablle Pin so the door cannot be removed that way by a burglar. The "stationary" panel if you have one with a fixed/operable configuration would have the same saddle/sill application for both panels or you will have a leaky nightmare as it definitely needs to be one piece unless I misunderstood you athens.

In addition with an outswing unit the screens need to be mounted to the inside and are not very becoming or bugproof, and don't even get me started on the retractable screens, lol.

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This post was edited by millworkman on Wed, Aug 21, 13 at 12:52

Our door company recommended outswing doors with composite frames due to the exposure these doors will be subjected to. We're going with Codel fiberglass french doors. I have no choice but to use the retractable screens, so hopefully there are a few good brands around now.

As for weatherproofing it really doesn't matter much for a well designed door unless you are in hurricane territory. And I would not want a glass door to be blown against the house or blown closed by the wind and it is just too easy to jimmy a latch bolt of a single leaf door when there is no stop in the way.