Door Repair in San Jose, From Eichler Slabs to Landmark Homes

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Free to request, and you agree the scope and price with the person you hire before work starts. In California, a job over $1,000 in labor and materials, or one that needs a building permit, must be done by a contractor licensed by the CSLB in the right class. Ask for the license number and check it at cslb.ca.gov.

The work

Door work that San Jose's houses and rules shape

Saving an original door in an older district
Your Old House asks owners to repair a deteriorated door rather than replace it or close up the opening. Its method is carpentry, not a new slab: damaged wood patched, pieced in or consolidated, layers of old paint taken off both faces, new weatherstripping fitted and the door repainted once it is back together. When a door is truly past saving, the replacement should match the original design as closely as possible, and the guide suggests a salvaged historic door as one way to get there.
A new front door on a Fairglen Additions Eichler
The city's Eichler standards keep the location, size and detailing of a street-facing entry, prohibit double doors and new openings at the front, and keep the glazed sidelights and transoms beside it, transoms in clear glass. A door beyond repair, or one already replaced, may be matched to the original or swapped for painted wood or metal with a flat surface and rectilinear, undivided glazing or none. Raised or recessed panels, fan lights, divided lites, beveled or art glass and Rustic or Colonial styles are prohibited.
Rollers, locks and glass on Eichler sliders
For the aluminum sliding doors at atria and rear walls, the standards' guidance is maintenance first: keep the glide wheels and locking mechanisms working, since replacement parts are often difficult to obtain, clean the tracks, and repair a lock or secure the door another way before replacing it. A panel that must go may be replaced by a fully glazed, metal-framed door with undivided panes in the original frame color; single, double-pane, low-E and tempered glass are all acceptable.
The door between an Eichler's garage and the house
San Jose's Eichlers place the garage on the front facade, and the standards describe the original doors at entrances other than the front as stained, veneered hollow-core slabs. Where such a door leads from the garage into the house, a replacement should meet Section R302.5.1 of the 2025 California Residential Code instead of copying it: solid wood or solid or honeycomb-core steel at least 1 3/8 inches thick, or a 20-minute rated door, self-latching and self-closing. Solid doors on side or rear walls that cannot be seen from the street may even be infilled or moved.
Strike plates and locks on apartment entry doors
San José's Multiple Housing program covers apartments, hotels, motels and similar buildings, and it publishes what its inspectors check. For doors the list includes strike plates on entry doors and jambs that are present and secure, sliding glass door tracks kept free of dust and debris, intact screens, no more than one security lock at an entry door, and double-keyed locks replaced with a standard deadbolt. Owners give tenants at least 72 hours' notice before an inspection.

Two men working on a wooden door laid across sawhorses outside a brick house, with a power planer and a level nearby. Photo: Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The houses here

Queen Anne cottages, Eichler slabs and inspected apartments

Three kinds of building set the door work here. Near downtown, the City Landmark districts and conservation areas keep houses from the 1870s to the 1940s; the Lakehouse district alone is mostly single-family homes built between 1885 and 1925, many of them one-story Queen Annes. Your Old House, the preservation guide the City Council approved in 2003, sketches the doors such houses were built with: paneled and half-glass doors, entries with transom and sidelights, and Craftsman, Colonial Revival and Period Revival front doors. Eichler Homes built seven tracts in the city between 1952 and 1963, and the city's standards describe three original door types there: a solid slab at the front, stained veneered hollow-core doors at other entrances, and aluminum sliders. Apartments, finally, answer to the Multiple Housing inspection program.

Part by part

Districts where a San Jose door is judged differently

Lakehouse City Landmark District
Bounded by West San Fernando Street, Highway 87 and Los Gatos Creek, it holds mostly single-family homes from 1885 to 1925, with a run of one-story Queen Annes in and around the 1891 Lake House Tract. Changing a door here is an HP Permit Adjustment; repairing one in kind is maintenance.
Reed City Landmark District
South of San José State, between East San Salvador Street and I-280, it keeps housing from about 1870 to 1935, especially along South Sixth Street, beside postwar apartments built as the college grew. Door changes on the old houses go through Planning, while apartment entry doors face the Multiple Housing checklist.
Guadalupe/Washington and Martha Gardens
Two conservation areas south of I-280, lined with late-1800s and early-1900s cottages, National, Queen Anne, Neoclassical and Craftsman among them; Martha Gardens adds houses once turned into boarding houses. A listed house takes a Single-Family House Permit, and Your Old House puts repair ahead of replacement.
Fairglen Additions, Willow Glen
Units 1 to 3 were built between 1959 and 1961, listed on the National Register in June 2019 and then on the city's inventory. That listing is why the Eichler standards govern entry doors, sidelights and sliders here and, for now, in no other San Jose tract.
Morepark, Fairglen, Hudson and Fairhaven
The city's other Eichler neighborhoods, built between 1952 and 1963, are not on the inventory, so the design standards do not reach their doors today. The document was written to cover any Eichler tract added to the inventory later, so owners there may see it apply in time.

Before you hire

Questions for a San Jose door pro before anything is ordered

Is our house on the Historic Resources Inventory, and under which classification, and will you check before a new front door is ordered?
In the Fairglen Additions, can you supply a flat, painted slab and leave the sidelights and clear transom as they are?
Can the Eichler slider's rollers and lock be repaired, or the panel replaced with an undivided, metal-framed one in the original color?
Will the work widen the opening? Then it needs a permit, and the smoke and carbon monoxide alarms will be checked.
For our apartment building, will each entry end up with a single standard deadbolt and a secure strike plate?

Questions

What San Jose owners and landlords ask about their doors

Do I need a San Jose permit to replace a door in the same frame?

The city's summary of permit-exempt work, drawn from Municipal Code Section 24.02.110, does not mention doors either way, so ask the Permit Center before ordering. What it does make plain is that alteration of walls needs a permit, so a wider opening, a new header or a door cut into a wall is permit work. On a house listed on the Historic Resources Inventory, a change to the door also needs Planning's historic permit.

Can we add a security screen door to our Fairglen Additions Eichler?

Not at the front entry. The Eichler standards prohibit security screen doors added there and suggest protection that leaves the original look alone, such as hardware, lighting, sensors and cameras. They also ask owners to keep the original knob and escutcheon plate where it survives, or to use replica hardware, hardware that closely approximates the original, or unornamented lever handles.

Do replacement sliders in a Fairglen Eichler have to meet the Energy Code?

Possibly not. San José has adopted the California Historical Building Code for historic properties, and the Eichler standards explain that it allows in-kind repair or replacement of the original windows and sliding doors of a qualified Eichler home without meeting the California Energy Code. The city's Building Official decides when the historical code applies, and the standards advise contacting the Historic Preservation Officer early.

Our tenants' units have double-keyed deadbolts. Is that a problem at inspection?

Yes, in a building under the Multiple Housing program. The city's inspection checklist says double-keyed locks must be replaced with a standard deadbolt and that no more than one security lock can be installed at the entry door. It also expects strike plates on doors and jambs to be present and secure, and sliding glass door tracks to be clean.

Our Queen Anne cottage in the Lakehouse district still has its original front door. Can it be replaced?

Repair comes first. Your Old House asks owners to repair deteriorated doors rather than replace them, and to match any replacement to the original as closely as possible, even suggesting a salvaged historic door. In a City Landmark District a door change goes through a Historic Preservation Permit Adjustment reviewed by Planning staff, while in-kind repair that leaves the outside unchanged needs no HP permit.

What lock does the San Jose Police Department suggest for an outside door?

Its burglary-prevention tips say pushbutton locks on doorknobs are easy for burglars to open and recommend deadbolts on all outside doors, adding that key-in deadbolts provide only minimum security and that a locksmith can advise on a particular house. The same page calls sliding glass doors vulnerable, notes that special locks are made for them, and says door hinges should be on the inside.

Keep exploring

More on door work and San Jose

Door repair in other cities

Guides and smaller jobs

Where this page belongs

Where these facts come from

Checked against these public sources in October 2026. Rules and programs change: confirm permit requirements with the city before work starts, and a contractor's license on the CSLB website.

sanjoseca.gov: when is a building permit required (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: permits for projects with historic resources (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: historic areas districts (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: your old house (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: 636689792742770000 (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: 638913000651930000 (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: multiple housing inspection program (sanjoseca.gov)
sanjoseca.gov: preparing for inspection (sanjoseca.gov)
sjpd.org: burglary prevention
codes.iccsafe.org: chapter 3 building planning
cslb.ca.gov: Licensing Classifications Detail (cslb.ca.gov)

San Jose doors in Fairglen Eichlers, landmark districts and apartments

Which San José office a door job answers to

The Building Division's exempt list

Historic Preservation permits for doors

Eichler Neighborhoods Objective Design Standards

Smoke and CO alarms once a permit is pulled

Get quotes for door work in San Jose

Door work that San Jose's houses and rules shape

Saving an original door in an older district

A new front door on a Fairglen Additions Eichler

Rollers, locks and glass on Eichler sliders

The door between an Eichler's garage and the house

Strike plates and locks on apartment entry doors

Queen Anne cottages, Eichler slabs and inspected apartments

Districts where a San Jose door is judged differently

Lakehouse City Landmark District

Reed City Landmark District

Guadalupe/Washington and Martha Gardens

Fairglen Additions, Willow Glen

Morepark, Fairglen, Hudson and Fairhaven