A front door with sidelights is a door and one or more tall narrow glazed panels, built into a single frame and fitted as one unit. You may also see it called a front door with side windows, with side panels, or a front door set with sidelights. They all describe the same thing.
Front door with sidelight 2 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 2 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 4 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 4 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 6 light w. Clamps, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 6 light w. Clamps, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 6 light w. Glazing bars, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 6 light w. Glazing bars, Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Smooth Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Smooth Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Adele Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Adele Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 8 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 8 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 12 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 12 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 15 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 15 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 2 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 2 light, Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Iris Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Iris Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Carrie Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Carrie Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Eva Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Eva Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 6 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 6 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 9 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 2 panels 9 light, Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Abbey Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Abbey Sidelight left
Panelled Door, Emma Sidelight right
Panelled Door, Emma Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 2 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 2 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 3 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 3 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 6 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 6 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 9 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 9 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 6 panels 9 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 6 panels 9 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 4 panels 2 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 4 panels 2 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 1 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 1 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 3 light w. Clamps, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 3 panels 3 light w. Clamps, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight Door w. 3 panels, sidelight w. 3 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight Door w. 3 panels, sidelight w. 3 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 8 panels 1 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 8 panels 1 light, Sidelight left
Front door with sidelight 8 panels 4 light, Sidelight right
Front door with sidelight 8 panels 4 light, Sidelight left
Only if you choose clear glass, and most people should not.
This is the question that stops people ordering, so it is worth settling first. A full-height clear sidelight beside a front door does give a view into the hall from the doorstep and from the path. On a private drive or into an enclosed porch that is fine, and the extra light is worth having.
Facing a pavement or a shared path, choose obscure glass instead. It passes almost as much daylight and removes the view entirely, and from outside it reads as a designed feature rather than a compromise.
The third route is a panelled layout. Solid panels below, glass above: light arrives at head height where it travels furthest into the hall, and nobody can see in at all from standing height. Twenty of the layouts on this page are built that way.
It is the whole thing: the door, the sidelight and the frame they both sit in, made together and delivered as one unit.
That matters more than it sounds. Buy a door leaf and a sidelight separately and someone has to build a frame that holds both, get the two to line up, and make the joint between them weathertight on site. Buy a door set and the joint was made in a factory, on a machine, to the same tolerance as the rest of the frame.
Ours are made to your opening rather than to a standard size, so the door and the sidelight are proportioned to each other and to the hole in your wall. You fit one unit into one opening.
A single sidelight is the usual answer, and the one to pick when the opening is modest or when the door sits off-centre in the elevation. You choose which side it goes on, left or right, and every layout on this page comes both ways.
A matched pair, one either side, turns the entrance into a symmetrical feature. It suits a wide central opening and a frontage where the door is the middle of the composition, and it doubles the daylight reaching the hall.
Three routes, and they change both the daylight and the privacy.
Glazing bars are available on the glazed layouts. They divide the glass visually without dividing the sealed unit, so you keep the insulation of a single pane.
Most entrance halls have no window. They borrow whatever light comes through the front door and through whatever doors happen to be open off them, which is why so many halls are the darkest room in the house.
A sidelight is the cheapest way to change that, because it does not need a new opening in a wall. The frame that holds your door gets wider and takes glass in the extra width, and the hall gains a window it never had.
Where the light goes depends on the layout. Glass high in the sidelight throws daylight further down the hall, because light entering above head height travels before it hits anything. Glass low in the sidelight lights the floor immediately inside the door. If the hall is long and narrow, put the glass high.
A pale wall opposite the sidelight roughly doubles the effect, which costs a tin of paint.
A sidelight is glass where a wall used to be, so the glass specification matters more here than in most windows.
Every door set is made to measure, so there is no list price. Yours is calculated from the size of the opening, the layout, the material, the glazing and the fittings, and the configurator prices it as you build, including VAT.
Two things move it more than people expect. The sidelight is a significant share of the total, because it is a second glazed element in the same frame rather than a trim added to the side of a door. And the layout matters as much as the size: every panel and every glazing bar is a separate operation, so a two pane door set and a fifteen pane one of identical dimensions are not the same job.
With a front door with sidelights, both the door and the sidelight are fitted into the same frame. If you choose a front door with sidelight, the sidelight lets more natural light into the room making your entrance hall appear bigger.
At SparWindows you can find different front doors with sidelights models. You can, for example, choose your new exterior door with sidelights – with or without glazing bars and with or without panels. Once you’ve chosen your preferred model, enter the dimensions, type of material and other specifications. At SparWindows we can produce your new front door sidelight section in quality Nordic pinewood.
You are able to choose between different accessories for your new front door section; e.g. you can choose between different sets of handles, thresholds or vents.
When purchasing your new front door with sidelights from SparVinduer, you cut out the middleman. We deliver to you directly from our own factory and can therefore guarantee quality products at low prices.
If you want more natural light in your home, take a look at our classic windows for conservatories or fixed windows.
Other customers have also looked at ordinary front doors or double front doors.
A front door with sidelights is a door and one or more tall narrow glazed panels built into a single frame and fitted as one unit. It is also called a front door with side windows, with side panels, or a front door set with sidelights. The purpose is daylight: most entrance halls have no window of their own, and a sidelight gives them one without altering a wall.
Through clear glass, yes, from the doorstep and from the path. That is why obscure glass is the usual choice where the door faces a pavement or a shared path: it passes almost as much daylight and removes the view completely. A panelled layout, with solid panels below and glass above, removes the view at standing height while still lighting the hall.
Nothing. Sidelight, side panel, side window and sidelite all describe the same thing: a narrow glazed unit fitted beside a door in the same frame. Sidelight is the trade term, where a light means a pane of glass. Side panel is the phrase most British homeowners use. Sidelite is the American spelling.
Not to the door itself, no. The sidelight and the door share one frame, so adding a sidelight means a new frame, which means a wider opening and a new door set rather than an addition to the old one. If your opening is already wider than the door, a new door set may fit the existing hole with no building work at all. Measure the full opening rather than the door.
Whichever side has the room. Every layout on this page comes with the sidelight on the left or the right, so the practical answer is usually decided by the wall: put the sidelight on the side with more space, and hinge the door so it opens against the sidelight rather than across it. If the door sits centrally in the elevation, consider a matched pair instead.
Usually yes. Approved Document K requires toughened or laminated glass in a door, and in glazing within 300 mm of a door edge and below 1500 mm from the floor. A sidelight sits directly beside a door, so it almost always falls inside that zone. Toughened and laminated are both options on every layout here, so you can meet the rule when you configure.
