Free in-home measure and quote - PGT, CGI and CWS impact lines compared on your actual openings, style by style
Fast, Reliable Door Installation Across Altadena
Door installation in Altadena runs between $1,400 and $7,800 depending on the door type, fire-rating requirements, and whether the existing frame needs rebuilding. On most entry door replacements we finish the job in one visit, usually four to six hours. Crews from Door Installation at TruePane Windows & Doors serve the whole 91001 ZIP from the canyon roads off Lake Avenue to the flat ranch tracts east of Fair Oaks. If you’re planning a replacement or rebuilding after the Eaton Fire, call (888) 635-0804 and we’ll walk you through what your specific door needs before you spend a dollar.
Why TruePane Windows & Doors Is Altadena’s Preferred Door Installation Company
We’ve pulled permits through LA County Building & Safety enough times to know exactly what the plan checker will flag on a door submittal. That matters here, because Altadena is unincorporated. A contractor who mostly works Pasadena or La Cañada often shows up with the wrong forms or misses the Chapter 7A fire-glazing callout, and the plan check bounces. We don’t make that mistake. We submit the county application the first time, with the fire-rating detail already noted on the plans.
Dale Kessler founded TruePane in 2008 with one rule written on the shop whiteboard: if the pane is not true, the job is not done. That rule extends to every door we hang. The jamb has to be square, the slab has to clear the threshold without dragging, and the weatherstripping has to hold against the Santa Ana gusts that scream down from the San Gabriels. Altadena homeowners have dealt with doors that bind in July and rattle in October long enough. We fix that for good.
Every technician who walks onto an Altadena property is background-checked and in uniform. We measure every opening twice before ordering a door, because an eighth of an inch matters when you’re fitting a fire-rated slab into an old Craftsman frame. A live person answers our phone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday and you’ll get a human voice, not a menu.
We’ve already done the work on homes from the Meadows up through the trees off Canyon Crest and Alzada Road, and we’ve seen what county inspectors look for on post-fire rebuilds. That local knowledge keeps your project moving. It’s why homeowners in Altadena call us back when they need a matching door on another part of the house.
Our Door Installation Services in Altadena
We install, replace, and rebuild doors throughout Altadena with an emphasis on fire-rated assemblies, Archwood-appropriate wood selections, and entries that stay square through decades of wind loading. Here’s what we handle most often.
Entry & Swing Doors
Swing doors are the workhorse of any Altadena front entrance, and they take the brunt of the weather here. A solid entry door on a properly shimmed jamb will last 30 years or more. One hung out of square on a racked frame will bind before the first winter ends. We rebuild the rough opening when it needs it, then install the door to factory spec with the manufacturer’s thresholds and weatherstripping rather than whatever was left over from the old one. For homes in the fire zone, we default to a 20-minute fire-rated slab or better, with impact-rated dual-pane tempered glass if the design calls for a lite.

Arched & Custom Doors
Altadena has a lot of original Craftsman bungalows and Spanish Colonial Revivals from the 1910s through the 1940s, and many of them have arched entryways you won’t find at a home center. We order arched slabs from manufacturers like PGT and CGI that build true architectural shapes, not cut-down rectangles. A custom arched door on an Altadena Craftsman needs the radius matched to the existing jamb, and we template every curve on site before the order goes in. These doors typically run $3,200 to $7,800 installed, depending on the radius size and whether the frame needs converting for a fire-rated assembly.

Double & French Doors
Sliding and patio doors are common on Altadena rear patios and sunrooms, particularly on the Spanish Colonial and ranch homes east of Lake Avenue. They fail in predictable ways here: the passive door drifts as the Santa Anas cycle pressure against the frame, and the astragal starts leaking warm air in from the foothill afternoon heat. We install French and double doors with reinforced center posts and adjustable hinges, and we set them so both slabs meet clean with even reveal. Prices for a double door system in Altadena generally fall between $2,800 and $6,500, including fire-rated frames when the county needs them.

Bifold & Folding Doors
Folding doors look right on a hillside home where the back wall opens to the San Gabriel ridgeline. But they’re heavy, and a hillside lot with sloped access means planning the lift and carrying path before ordering anything. We scope the haul route on every Altadena bifold job. If the driveway can’t take a lift, we carry the panels in by hand and assemble on site. Bifold installations run from $4,000 to $9,000 in Altadena, and we won’t quote one without walking the path from the street to the opening first. That’s the only honest way to price it.

What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Altadena
TruePane is an authorized installer for more than a dozen manufacturer lines, including, PGT, and CGI. For Altadena specifically, we stock most of our energy-efficient replacement parts from PGT, Ply Gem, and CWS because those lines hold up to the heat cycling and wind pressure we see at the base of the San Gabriels. We quote manufacturer options side by side on paper so you see the actual cost difference without a sales pitch. Both warranty layers get registered in writing before our truck leaves your driveway, every time.
Common Door Installation Problems We See in Altadena Homes
- Plan-check rejection on county permits. Contractors submit city of Pasadena forms instead of the LA County application and omit the Chapter 7A fire-glazing callout. The plan checker bounces it, and the rebuild stalls for two to three weeks. We’ve walked multiple Altadena projects back through the WUI review to fix exactly this.
- Door jambs racked out of square by Santa Ana wind. Repeated pressure spikes from the mountain corridor push the frame out of true, the slab binds, and the weatherstripping shreds within one season. A properly reinforced jamb and through-bolt anchoring fixes the root cause instead of re-hanging the same door on a crooked frame.
- Standard dual-pane glass delaminating on west-facing doors. The foothill sun on Altadena’s western exposures cycles surface temperatures hard enough to crack the seal on a standard IGU within five years. Fire-rated tempered glass with a better edge seal holds up far longer.
- Outbuilding and detached ADU doors failing inspection. If a rebuilt shop or ADU was hung on an old septic or well setback and grading shifted the drainage, the final inspection fails even with a fire-rated frame. We verify the setback paperwork and confirm the door opening hasn’t shifted before we install.
Pricing for Door Installation in Altadena, CA
You should know what to expect before anyone hands you a quote. Here are honest ranges for the Altadena market, based on jobs we’ve scoped and completed in 91001:
- Single entry door replacement: $1,400 to $3,200
- Fire-rated entry door (20-minute minimum, Chapter 7A compliant): $2,400 to $5,500
- Double or French door system: $2,800 to $6,500
- Bifold or folding door system: $4,000 to $9,000
- Arched or custom door with architectural frame work: $3,200 to $7,800
- Storm door installed: $450 to $1,100
What moves the number is the frame condition, whether the opening needs re-framing for a fire-rated assembly, and how difficult the access is on a hillside lot. We scope every Altadena job in person before we quote, so the number on paper is the number you pay. Call (888) 635-0804 to schedule your free estimate. We’ll measure, check the county permit path, and give you a written line-item quote.
We Also Serve Cities Near Altadena
Our crews regularly handle door installations in Pasadena, San Marino, Sierra Madre, and South Pasadena. If you’re just across the county line or up the road, we bring the same fire-rating knowledge and county permit experience to the table. For full details on our door work across the area, see our service area page for Altadena.
Serving Altadena, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Altadena 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 - Door Installation in Altadena
Yes. All of Altadena sits inside a Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, which means any permitted door replacement or new installation must meet California Building Code Chapter 7A fire-resistance requirements. That applies regardless of whether your house was damaged in January 2025 or not. A standard hollow-core door or a single-pane glass panel that passes inspection in Pasadena will get red-tagged here. We default to a 20-minute fire-rated slab with dual-pane tempered glass on every Altadena entry job, and we note the Chapter 7A compliance directly on the permit drawings. Call (888) 635-0804 and we’ll tell you exactly what your existing door has and what it needs.
Altadena permits run through LA County Building & Safety instead of a city hall, which means the application forms and plan-check reviewers are different from what a Pasadena-based contractor typically uses. If the contractor submits city forms or misses the Chapter 7A fire-glazing callout on the plan, the submittal bounces and you lose weeks. We’ve worked the county process enough to know what they flag. Our team submits county applications the first time, with the fire-rating detail already marked, so the plan check clears without a re-cycle.
We install fire-rated assemblies from PGT, CGI, Marvin, and Ply Gem that meet the Chapter 7A requirements and carry wind-load ratings that hold through the Santa Ana pressure spikes common in Altadena. PGT’s WinGuard line and CGI’s Sentinel series both carry Miami-Dade wind and debris ratings, which far exceed what the San Gabriel corridor throws at a door. For a fire-rated slab with dual-pane tempered glass, we usually quote PGT or Marvin depending on the architectural style. Call (888) 635-0804 for side-by-side quotes on paper.
We hand-carry it. Most Altadena hillside lots off Canyon Crest or Alzada Road can’t fit a crane or a lift, so our crew carries the panels up the driveway or trail in pieces and assembles the door at the opening. We’ve done it on burned hillside lots where the driveway was too narrow for anything wider than a pickup bed. We scope the carrying path during the free estimate, so the quote includes the labor it actually takes to get the door where it goes. No surprise line item on the bill later.
Sometimes, yes. If the ADU or shop was built on an older septic or well setback and grading work has shifted the drainage pattern, the county inspector will check the door opening against the approved plans before signing off. We verify the setback paperwork and confirm the frame hasn’t moved before we install. That way the new fire-rated door passes inspection the first time instead of failing because the building shifted half an inch after the last survey. Call (888) 635-0804 for an exact assessment of your structure.
Written by Dale Kessler, Owner at TruePane Windows & Doors, serving Altadena and the San Gabriel Valley foothills.



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