Installing a sliding glass door to your home can be a real asset. The doors can lead out onto a patio or terrace area that is great when entertaining or having a party. People can mill in and out through the large unobstructed opening at ease.
When deciding on the type of sliding door system to use, you have a couple of options. If the structural opening is quite small, say 2.5m, then you would probably want to use sliding patio doors. These usually consist of two door panels that run on a set of double tracks in the floor. The doors can slide left and right in parallel to each other. When open both doors will rest to the side, one in front of the other. They are relatively inexpensive to purchase and install but the main disadvantage is that only about half of the structural opening width is useable as the parked door panels take up the other half.
The second type is folding doors, also referred to as bi-folding doors. This type is particularly suited to larger structural openings, say 5 – 6 m wide. The structural opening is divided into equal parts of about 1m and each part is an individual door incorporating a frame and glass panel. All the doors sit in a row within the opening on a single floor track and connected to each other with hinges. Weather proofing gaskets are built into each door frame making the whole system weather tight. Each door panel is equipped with locks securing the complete system. One of the doors will act as an entry door and operates in the same way as a traditional door. This is useful when you only want to come in or go out without having to open the entire door system. To open the door system is simple. Firstly unlock all of the door panels then open the entry door and push. The whole door system will start to slide and each of the doors will fold or collapse against its neighbour, a bit like a concertina door. The bunched up doors will then sit to the side. If the structural opening is very large then it may be arranged that half of the doors will fold to one side and the other half to the other forming the useable opening in the middle. They are a great choice but a lot more expensive than the traditional patio type doors.
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