Don't they dismantle them and put them into storage for the winter and give them a fresh coat of paint every couple of years?
I don't know - I've never noticed them gone. I saw at an exhibition that the door to 10 Downing Street (which is steel and blastproof) is swapped over regularly for a newly painted one. They had the original wooden one at the show.
Dulux Weathershield needed. If down to wood you need to fill in holes then primer, undercoat and top coat gloss. This is 16 hour to dry top coat because it’s the rock hard old fashioned gloss. Gives a great finish and lasts. Oil based, clean with white spirit Possibly from BQ or definitely the Dulux decor centres. Water based stuff is ok for interior, even then still don’t get the level of gloss
As j As just mentioned this is the best you can do - having said this, if your Scarborough front door is likely to see extremes of low and high wood moisture. Baking sun in summer followed by rain in cold winter then the door’s really going to expand and contract causing splitting paint films around any detailing, no matter what you use. Another option is to give it a Dulux exterior water based top coat. This will split a little faster than the oil based stuff, but it’s a piece of cake to sand just around the split details every couple of years and is easy to just then touch up around these areas. The oil based stuff would mean you’d have to sand and top coat the whole of the door again as it’s finish is so good there nowhere to hide a touch up. So something else to consider
I will tell you how the roof of my bus goes- owing to a SNAFU during deepest lockdown when peeling the solar panels glue caused a bare metal effect, the aluminium/chromate treated poptop roof was primed with etch primer on the bare patches and then rollered with two coats of the Dulux gloss white. Because that was the only paint I had enough of in my store of paint, and there were no paint shops open to the general public at the time. I think it was borderline lockdown-busting being outside on the garage runup. But I do own it.
Our front door is solid hardwood, oak I think. It's not painted as such but treated with oil. It fades a bit but doesn't peel or blister and is easily renovated with a light sand and a recoat, best done every year or two but ours lasted over four years and came up like new after treatment. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00JPG1Q5S/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Just a word of caution with Weathershield, national shortage of deep base gloop for making it up. Just spent an exciting hour trying to understand why the Dulux paint shop can't make my paint up, dark green or white!!
I agree with the comments about Dulux water-based exterior paints being pretty good. Few years ago I painted a front door at a coastal house - couple hundred metres from the sea, exposed. I just buzzed over the door with the sander after stripping furniture off down and banged on two coats of the dulux, kinda expecting to have to do a more thorough job fairly quickly- so far its all good after 3 years. 130yr old door, minimal prep. Sent from my H3113 using Tapatalk