Creating Custom Doors in Guatemala Heat

The Caoba Doors Company, based in Antigua, Guatemala, is focused on quality. As a provider of high-end, custom-made doors and windows for real estate developers building multi-million dollar homes, the company can’t afford to be otherwise.

When the company was founded in 1983, it built fireplace mantels and pool tables. It got into wood-crafted windows in the late 1990s, first as a partner with Home Depot and then with Lowe’s, supplying both retailers with a variety of sliding and folding window-doors.

As often happens, outside forces unrelated to business can inspire a major turn in a small company’s direction. In the case of Caoba Doors, it was a force of nature. Guatemala suffered a series of severe flash floods in 2005, and they forced the company to close for nearly a month.

It was during this closure that the owners decided it was time to leave the retail business. Instead, they focused on designing and producing windows, doors, and trim for complete home packages.

Today, Caoba Doors works directly with architects and real estate developers of high-end residential properties. Most of its work goes to oceanside, warm-weather locations, with its biggest markets in the Caribbean and Hawaii. Its doors and windows can also be found in major cities around the world.

Caoba traveled this road from pool tables to retailers to the top of the real estate market because it has kept its focus squarely on quality.

Top Materials and High Yields

All of Caoba’s work is custom made. It has no standard items. It works in any wood, any style, and any finish to meet the aesthetic and engineering requirements of its clients. So the starting point for high quality is, of course, the wood itself.

Most of the wood used in Caoba designs is local to Guatemala, including Honduras mahogany and local Spanish cedar, which make up 50 to 60 percent of its exterior lumber. The rest is imported wood like Douglas fir, western red cedar, and poplar. Most of its interior products are built from other high-end woods like oak and mahogany.

Through longstanding relationships with local harvesters and wood importers, Caoba receives green, milled lumber. Nearly every piece it buys is graded Number 1 Common or better. It buys 4/4, 6/4, and 8/4 thicknesses, and much of its wood is Select grade or FSC certified.

Managing Wood Moisture Throughout the Process

All lumber is inspected when it arrives. The local lumber is stacked, stickered, and air dried for a reasonable amount of time. In some cases, it’s put in one of four computerized kilns.

After the lumber is considered dry, or comes out of the kiln, Caoba checks each board. Each board is measured for moisture content with a pinless Wagner Meters L622 Digital Recording Moisture Meter and reviewed for quality and appearance. Based on this review, each board is assigned to the use it’s best suited for. This board-by-board review helps Caoba get high yields from its lumber.

Caoba’s standard is to dry to 8 to 12 percent moisture content, and its quality control process includes several stops along the way where moisture meters are used to take readings. The company also makes a point of keeping moisture content in a range suited to where the product is going, often hot, oceanside areas, in homes that may run air conditioning almost constantly.

For desert projects, Caoba does a dry build, drying the lumber down to 6 percent moisture content. From there, it keeps the lumber wrapped in plastic when not in use, and in a sealed area while it waits to be processed.

Once a board has been reviewed, measured, and assigned to a specific purpose, it goes through the milling and CNC machines. During these phases, the L622 meter is used to test samples from each batch to make sure the lumber has an acceptable moisture content for its purpose and destination.

According to Caoba’s founder, Paul Kronick, staying on top of the lumber’s moisture content is critical to the company’s overall quality. If a piece of lumber has too much moisture, “The team will have to replace it, it won’t work. Wood moves, it’s a living thing, and if it’s got too much moisture, it goes. There’s a general consensus on how it reacts, but that’s not always the case. Moisture control is the most important thing to make sure that your product doesn’t have a problem in the future.”

The final moisture measurement happens right before a finish is applied, to make sure the wood is ready for the finish the architect selected. After finishing, a final inspection is done, and the doors and windows are packed and shipped to their destination.

Throughout the process, Caoba respects the natural beauty and variation of each piece of wood. This attention to each piece’s purpose and destination lets the company consistently deliver the designs its clients request.

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Tony Morgan

Tony Morgan is a senior technician for Wagner Meters, where he serves on a team for product testing, development, and also customer service and training for moisture measurement products. Along with 19 years field experience for a number of electronics companies, Tony holds a B.A. in Management and his AAS in Electronics Technology.

Last updated on October 9th, 2026