10 considerations when choosing between sliding and bi-fold doors
Head of Marketing at Reynaers, Hugh Moss, highlights the choices available for patio and bi-fold doors – and explains some of the technical terms that homeowners may need to get to grips with
W
hen choosing whether to have a slid- ing patio door or a bi-fold door, there are a number of pros and cons
that you may want to consider. Here’s a top 10 list of the major factors to take into account.
1. Opening size Bi-fold doors have an obvious advantage in that they can open up about 90 per cent of the aper- ture, letting in lots of fresh air and extending the room. Patio doors by comparison will typically open up between 50 per cent and 65 per cent of the aperture.
2.Ventilation If you want to open the door for a little ventila- tion, the patio door offers the most flexible solu- tion with the ability to open the door just as far as necessary to make a room comfortable. Bi-fold doors’ flexibility will depend on the design, but often opening a door leaf is the min- imum you can do to let some fresh air in.
3. Uninterrupted view If having an uninterrupted view is important, then a patio door may be a better option. Bigger door leafs with large panes of glass give more of a panoramic view than a bi-fold door that comprises several narrower door leafs, each with a frame around them.
4. Open in or open out Most people choose to have their bi-fold doors open out rather than open in. The main reason for this is that if you open the doors when it has been raining, you don’t want a puddle of rain water inside the house.
5. Clear space With bi-fold doors, you can choose to have all the door leafs stacking to the left or the right, or you can choose to split them so some stack
each side. You can also choose whether the doors open in or out. When making these deci- sions, it is worth remembering that the doors require some clear space around them in order to open, as you don’t want to be moving furni- ture or plant pots every time you open the doors.
6. Traffic door There’s a variety of bi-fold door designs to choose between. The number of door leafs will be largely dictated by the size of the opening, but it is worth considering the benefits of choos- ing a design with a traffic door. Typically found on designs with an odd number of door leafs, the traffic door is a single door leaf that can be opened without unlocking the rest of them. Effectively operating just like a normal back door, this is convenient for when you want to quickly nip out into the garden.
7. Weight at top or bottom Bi-fold doors are usually mounted on sets of rollers that carry the weight of the door and run in a track set into the floor. There are a few
Continued overleaf... selfbuilder & homemaker
www.sbhonline.co.uk
[
Bi-fold doors have an advantage in that they can open up about 90 per cent of the aperture, letting in lots of fresh air and extending the room. If you want to open the door for a little ventilation, the patio door offers the most flexible solution
] 53
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76