Bifold or sliding doors?

[Elektra1]

I’m doing a small (3m) kitchen extension soon and need to decide what sort of doors to have. Builder has specified bifolds in his quote. The current floor plan has the glass doors running the full length across the new rear wall (about 5m across). I may change this to get more workspace but either way, most of that wall will be glass door.

I currently have 2 x tilt and fold doors, which each have 2 fixed panels and a “door” panel. This means that the usable exit to garden is small, though obviously for most of the year that doesn’t matter. It would be nice to have a wider opening, but I’ve read a lot of people have problems with bifolds, and of course they take up space outside when stacked. Or has the design improved?

We had bi folds fitted in our dining room last year, we’ve just started using them now the weather is improving and I love them.
100% the right choice for us.

We have a 6m opening and have sliding doors. 3 panels. Love them. More glass and less frame.

I love bifolds but if you get them be sure to get an odd number of panels so you can have a fixed door as the first one you open. This means you can just open a door if you need to. On my old house I had 3 panels and loved them. On my current bigger house I have 4. This means there is no fixed door as the initial opening and you always have to open the first 2 panels folding them back. We now have a dog and open them approximately 10 times a day. I hate that they don’t work like the odd numbered bifolds.

Just make sure you have a window so you can have it ajar if needed. Especially in the winter you don't want to open a full door when it's freezing but you want to let some air in.

Bifolds. Have lived with both and there is no contest! Edited to add, agree with above, we have 3 panels so one can be opened on its own,

We love our bifolds, the doors run almost the full width of the back of the kitchen, 3 wide doors, with 2 windows either side - they push all the way to the side when open and are naturally at the side of the garden where they’re not in the way when open.
we contemplated having 5 doors but thought the frames would look fussy when closed so streamlined and went with 3 wider ones.
Lovely to open up the house completely and we love the inside outside feel when they’re open out on to the patio.

We've gone for sliders. i think the opening is around 4 meters its our full back wall with very slim profile, so its almost like being sat outside. We love how sleek it looks and a lot of friends have had quite a few issues with Bifolds over the last few years with dropping.

@JLo71we have 4 panels and a fixed door on our bifolds.

We had bifolds but replaced for sliding. It’s a massive space so with the sliding doors we still have a wide opening

Sliders. We haven’t thee panels and they slide both ways. We can crack it open to let air in easier than bifolds if it’s raining for example.

Guess space matters too. We have a really large opening. In laws have bifolds but a smaller opening and works well.

Have you considered slide and pivot doors? Each panel operates independently and fold back so you can have the full
opening but without the big hinges that take space for bifolds.

Otherwise, I would choose sliders over bifolds

Thanks all, some good points here, especially about having odd number of panels with bifolds. I currently have slide and tilt but it’s just one narrow panel which slides and tilts open.

I don’t feel strongly really about the difference between bifolds or sliders. The stacking of bifolds would reduce space on what will be a smallish patio so perhaps that leans towards sliders. I assume sliders are cheaper?

Dislike bi-folds and much prefer french doors with side windows.

One of the often quoted advantages of bi-folds is that you can "being the garden into your house" but personally I don't want that and are far happier with a smaller opening.
As a PP said, having side windows that open is a great advantage when you want ventilation without wanting to open the doors.

When we got ours (about 2 years ago) we were told cost for sliders was approx £1k per metre but guess lots of things regarding fitting would have to be taken into consideration