Those of you who have sliding patio doors (rather than bi-fold)

[skinnyflatwhite]

please help!

Our builder is trying to persuade us against sliding patio doors. He's trying to talk us in to choosing bi-folds instead.

Do you have a high threshold (step over bit) to get out to the patio/garden? Is it annoying? He says if we get bi-fold they will be flush with the kitchen.

We have bi-folds leading out from the conservatory. I love that in the summer they really open up the room to the garden and gives it a completely different feel than you get with normal doors. It's easy enough to just use a doorstop if you just want one door open.

We have bifolds and love them. We have ours set to fold outwards so do not take up any space on the inside of the house,

Sliding doors don't open the house up like bifolds do IMO.

I have a 4 metre wide opening. I have 4 panes that fold and slide to one side. No pedestrian door, but you can open 1 or 2 or 3 iykwim.
I have no step over, your builder is a bit out of date there I think. My doors are flush with the inside tiles, and the patio on the outside.
They are in no way dated, and they suit this house. French doors wouldn't suit the rest of the decor and I've had them before and they needed fixed open.
I'll try to take a photo, but it's pitch black outside.

Ours slide and I love them. They're not really in the style of the pic above though. We have a completely level threshold, no step whatsoever. And they slide behind a section of wall and don't leave a big lump of folded door like bifold.

www.sunparadise.co.uk/sliding-doors/monoslide60-moveable-glass-wall.aspx

We have french doors but we rarely open both of them unless the weather is really good. I quite fancy the thought of bifold doors though.

X-posted with SquirtedPerfume. Our doors are similar to hers, but nothing like the pic posted on the previous page.

Oh thank you for all your replies. Seems like most like bi-fold.

Squirted, do you have sliding or bi-fold doors?

This is such a big decision we need to get it right. We still feel that sliding patio doors (2 outer ones fixed, 2 inner sliding) are the way to go but from your advice on here we seem to be in a minority.

Have you ruled out French doors for a reason? If I couldn't have bi fold I'd go for French. I wouldn't have sliding patio doors

French doors, normal doors on hinges. Timeless and practical.

With french doors, we could have an extra pane of glass over it to let more light in all year round whereas bi-folds only go up to a certain height and you can only open it fully a few months a year.

Squirted, do you have sliding or bi-fold doors?

Neither! Both! Dunno. I have a wall of 4 x 1 metre glass doors that fold and slide to one end. Like this, but it isn't mine. You can get them hung to fold inside or outside the house.

There's a slider runner thing flush at floor level, and a drain on the outside that's the width of my finger for rain water. I know this because our builder said I had to have an ugly 3 inch wide drain and my architect said no way and made him put in the smaller one. Builder was most put out!
Looks great though. The architect took photos for his portfolio because I made the tiler align the inside floor tiles up with the outside patio flags (same width size) so when the whole wall is open the lines are straight. They are also a similar colour so looks lovely in the sun. Hth.

Thank you all, you've given me a lot to think about.

We've never considered French doors - don't think they are appropriate. We have a very small patio area.

Squirted I think that if we go for bi-fold then we will have what you have; 4 doors that push over to the same wall. I think that means that we can have an opening at one end but it is also a fixed opening (so it's not going to wallop about in the wind).

I suppose that also means that when you open the first door the all the rest open..........so if you only want a bit of fresh air you're stuffed!

We have just replaced the sliding patio doors in our house with French doors. I would never ever have sliding patio doors again, sorry. You can only ever have half the window area open iyswim, the runners looked filthy (we do clean! it just seemed to collect grot) and a couple of times when opening them they felt as though they were going to come off the runner.

We had four doors like the one above and we can pull them back as much or little as we want...you don't need to go all the way along, although they look better that way!

No, bi fold means only two open. I haven't found you a good picture. You can have any number open you want. Only open one of four if you want. You need to spend some time in a windows showroom supplier!
This is one pane open, apologies it's dark!

Squirted, thank you! Really nice of you to send a photo even in the dark, sorry if I'm being dim. So it sounds like you have 4 x 1 metre windows that push open to one side rather than the usual pedestrian door plus...

I'm going to ask my OH to look at all this (he'll roll his eyes) because I'm totally confused by all these options.

Thank you all very much and please do keep telling me about all what i ccan have

Pootlebug - the company that you used have ceased trading apparently www.bespokealuminiumglazing.co.uk/669969/2013/03/26/getting-the-most-light-into-your-kitchen-extension-.html#GBR_DIGITALPRESENCE_c203c4f2-ad22-45a2-9642-3782f9cfdb91_Comment_9223370645323013801_-4362

We have Nordan sliding patio windows, there is no step at all they were installed just lower than the floor on the outside but not sure if that is the usual thing to do. They were made to measure and I think cost about 2k so lots cheaper than bifold which were 7k or something mad!

We have sliding patio doors that were in the house when we bought it. I think they date the house. It irritates me that only half of the window opens up and that it's off-centre. If we were re-doing them, I'd do either french windows or bi-folds. If I viewed a house which had been re-done and they'd installed sliding patio doors, I'd be disappointed. But if you're not planning to move for a long-time, just do whatever you like best.

Skinnyflatwhite - I hadn't realised that. Have done some googling which seems to confirm it. Ho hum, fingers crossed nothing goes wrong with our doors as the guarantee might not be worth much.....

We have sliding doors as part of a glass wall, from a company called Fine Line, who not surprisingly specialize in doors with very narrow frames.

Like some of these

www.finelinealuminium.co.uk/gallery.php?v=residential

Our frames cannot be more that 2cm in width so you maximum window and light for the 363 days of the year that they are not open

WithManyTots lovely looking windows from Fine Line. I'm going to give them a call to suss out prices etc. They look expensive. Thanks

Skinny - Fine Line are really expensive I'm afraid, but I think the trick is to make sure you use a company who have slim frames.

We are due to start having our window and doors fitted today, we have 2 sets of 6m wide openings with sliding panels, we have broken the 6m down into 3 x2m panels so when open we will have a large opening space.

I was thinking that you might want to consider having less panels in you 4m opening as then you will visually have less interruption.

In our last house we fitted sliding folding doors, a good 8 years ago, they were lovely but I didn't want them again. What I want is clean lines and views. Folding sliding are great when open but not so good when closed.

Mmm I called Fine Line and they are double the price of other suppliers. I don't think our house warrants that. Nice product though.

Ours is a 4.2m gap too and we have three panels of glass, the middle one of which slides. They are timber windows clad with grey aluminium which looks lovely. All our windows are the same grey - Nordan will make any colour you like