Front Door With Sidelights Cost in Ontario: One or Two, Transoms, the Wider Opening, the Header Question, and When the Wall Is Bearing

The numbers

What you are buying

A door system with sidelights comes from the manufacturer as one frame: the door, the sidelight or sidelights (usually 12 or 14 in. wide, full height), the mullions between, one sill across the whole width. Glass in the sidelights matches the door’s glass: clear, privacy-textured, decorative, with or without grilles, tempered by code because it is beside a door. A transom above adds a fourth piece of glass and 12 to 16 in. of height, which means the header moves up as well as out.

Prices for the system: about $1,000 for one sidelight over the door alone, $1,900 for two, $700 for a rectangular transom and $1,100 for an arched one. The decorative glass packages are where it runs away; a wrought-iron-look insert in the door and both sidelights can be $2,500 of glass on its own.

The opening

A 36-in. door with two 14-in. sidelights needs a rough opening about 66 in. wide. The old opening is 38. Thirty inches of wall comes out, and above it is a header that was sized for 38 in. Three cases:

1. The old door already had sidelights. Same opening, same header. The door job plus the glass. $4,500 to $5,500.
2. No sidelights, but the wall is not bearing. A gable-end wall on a one-storey, or a wall under a roof that bears elsewhere. The carpenter opens the wall, puts in a header sized for the span anyway, re-sheathes and re-sides. +$900. Still worth asking the building department; some want a permit regardless.
3. No sidelights, bearing wall. Most front walls on two-storey houses. The floor above sits on it. Temporary support inside, the old header out, a new header sized by a designer or engineer, posts to the foundation, a permit with the drawing, an inspection. +$2,400 and up, and a few weeks of paper. Permits.

In brick, add the mason: the brick above the opening sits on a steel lintel that also has to get longer, and the brick returns at the new jambs have to be cut and toothed. $600 to $1,500 on top, and a reason to think about one sidelight instead of two.

Glass: see out, not in

Clear sidelights beside a front door are a window into the hall and a window for anyone outside to see whether you are home. Textured privacy glass (rain, glue chip, reed), a decorative insert, or a mini-blind between the panes solves it. Tempered is automatic; laminated is the security upgrade, because a sidelight is the pane a burglar breaks to reach the deadbolt. Put the deadbolt out of arm’s reach of the glass, or use a double-cylinder with the key hung nearby, or laminate the glass. Security.

Where homeowners go wrong

1. Widening a bearing wall as a “door replacement”. No permit, a doubled 2×8 that was not enough, and a door that stops closing in year three.
2. Two sidelights on a narrow porch. A 66-in. opening on a 6-ft porch is a door with no wall beside it for a light or a number.
3. Clear glass, deadbolt within reach. See above.
4. Ordering before the mason has looked. In brick, the lintel decides the opening width, not the catalogue.

Sources and further reading

• Ontario’s Building Code: the official page, with the current regulation. Egress is 9.9.10, glazing and windows 9.6 and 9.7, energy is Supplementary Standard SB-12.
• Your rights when starting home renovations or repairs: Ontario government. The 10-day cooling-off period for contracts signed in your home, and what a contract has to say.