Sliding doors as only back door?

[LucyPie]

We are planning to have a kitchen/family room with approx 6 metres of glazed doors across the back. These will be our only back doors - we have 3 year old twins - does anyone else have just sliding doors as back doors?
We are put off bifold doors as the room is north facing so will hardly ever have the whole lot open.
Any thoughts appreciated :)

We're doing the same so watching with interest. Our little man is also 3...

We're doing the same so watching with interest. Our little man is also 3...

we do currently and it is fine although I prefer the French windows we are replacing with. we don't have a proper back door at all.

Will the DC be able to manage the sliding door on their own? You don't want to be opening and closing doors for them for years to come.

I would prefer French Windows personally if there was no ordinary back door.
Agree that bifolds are a waste of time in a north facing room.

We had sliding doors in our old house with 2 kids (4 & 2)- it wasn't ever really a problem, although as calendula points out, they weren't able to open the sliding doors so you had to either leave them open or keep letting them in. If we had stayed there I would have looked at French Windows as a better option.

Will you need/want a cat flap?

I don't get it really - what do sliding doors give you that bifold don't in a north facing room? If you just want lots of light, then french doors would be easier and cheaper wouldn't they?

Or do you just want a really contemporary look?

We have bifolds on a north east facing kitchen diner and I love them. We had them fitted in June and have had them fully open almost every day since (although ours are only 2.4m wide I think). The room is flooded with light in thd morning too.

I'm about to change mine to 3 slider only too, the reason being for me that they have less frames than bifolds and French doors. I like the fact if I want a but of fresh air I can open them slightly rather than having doors wide open swinging about.

We had a sliding door as our back door. Our only problem was we had to retro fit a lock approved by our house insurance company. The standard lock it came with was not sufficient and up to that point had been supplemented by a bolt type lock only operable from inside.

we have bifold, and the advantage is that you can have one door as a 'pass door', i.e. it locks and opens just like a normal door. And that door doesn't flap as the doors came with a brilliant (and strong) magnet system that holds it open when you're just using the one door.

6 metres is really wide so french doors would not look right and as it looks over the garden we want to see the view as much as possible and the sight lines on sliding seem to be much better with slimmer frames than bifolds. Our house is also very modern.
I agree that this summer the bifolds would have been fully open but this seems to have been a bumper summer for warmth.
Will keep pondering for now.
Thanks for the thoughts so far and any others much appreciated.