Why are doors pre-primed with off white paints?

[opps]

Over the last week I have hung doors made by Todds Doors and Premidoor. Both were preprimed.

Both required me to undercoat them with white oilbased undercoat before I could apply the white eggshell or white satinwood.

Why not just prime them in white, rather than off white in the first place?

 

[Old Salt]

Probably is white, then goes off white during storage and supply.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

A lot of doors seem to end up grey these days. The front doors where I am at the moment are black (with black metalwork including the kick plates). I presume the manufacturers are really just trying to seal their product. A few years ago we had an entire buildings worth of doors (over 70 of them, all prehung) turn up primered in grey. Most were to be gloss painted white, too...

 

[opps]

Probably is white, then goes off white during storage and supply.

I dunno... I have looked at the manufacturer websites and the doors, when shown hung in frames that are painted white, are clearly off white

 

[johnny2007]

I find that being off white is convenient.
When you paint them white you know what you cover and what not, so you don't miss any spot.

 

[opps]

I find that being off white is convenient.
When you paint them white you know what you cover and what not, so you don't miss any spot.

With the last set of doors, I was working at a mate's rented home (housing association), so he wanted me to provide an "acceptable" standard (ie. lower than my usual standard).

One coat of Dulux Trade oil based undercoat, followed by one coat of Dulux Trade oil based satinwood. I could see that it needed a second coat of satinwood to provide a "full" white finish. He was happy with it. The finish annoyed me though.

Strangely, pre-primed MDF skirting boards machined on site by timber merchants do tend to be white, rather than off white. Perhaps that is because the machine they run them through use waterbased paints.