Bifold vs sliding doors

[4under4]

Hi. We are currently planning a kitchen extension and We have a large opening for bifold doors / sliding doors. I'm not a fan of bifold but all the sliding door companies look eye wateringly expensive! Can anyone recommend a company please? Or does anyone have any experience? We are in south west.

Many thanks

Hi, we are going to put in sliding doors, and are in the SW. I looked at schuco (top £££), reynaers, smart, kloeber. Going with reynaers as it seemed a good balance between cost and quality. Still a lot of money, but not far off bifold cost for the same size. I think Smart are a decent option which is a bit cheaper, but I had been advised to avoid their lift and slide version as the mechanics are a bit dodgy. The normal one they do is fine apparently. Origin are meant to be bringing out a sliding door about now.

Hi

We're about to place an order with panoramic doors for their "slide and stack" doors which seem to offer the best of both worlds and looks really sleek.

We saw the doors at Grand Designs and liked them. Price is also very competitive.

panoramicdoors.co.uk/

They also have 20% off this month which has really helped with the price!

If anyone has any bad experience of them PLEASE LET ME KNOW before I go ahead and pay my deposit!

We went with Velfac, they do amazing quality and do a lot of commercial work. We originally found them in a flat we rented.
When I discussed with them they said they don't promote bifolds as they don't last as long due to the high stresses on them, they also cost a lot more.
For us we'd only open about 20 days a year so maybe not worth.
Velfac sliding doors can be made really wide, ours are 3m wide and 2.5m high, the right hand side sliders over the left.

I want a house to fit the panoramic doors, they look amazing.

We have velfac as well. Each door is their max of 1.3m wide. One fixed one sliding. It's lovely and such a nice mechanism.

Thanks everyone. Our opening is 4.4 m so quite a wide gap. My only concern with sliding doors is ease of access for kids to garden. We could put a door in that wall but fear it might ruin aesthetics!!

We have had a quote from ODC and it is 7k - eye watering but they are beautiful. Would like some comparisons though if anyone is happy to divulge what they spent!! Many thanks xx

Hi. Have you been to see any of these doors? I'm struggling to find anywhere vaguely local. What width are you looking at? Thanks for list of names though. Will get googling! Xx

If it was me I'd get three velfac sliders. But it'd be at least that much money. I'll check our invoice later for the exact cost of the two.
My kids are little so I only want them outside when I say they can so I didn't really think about it like that. If they were a bit older I'd rather they slid than banged a folding door open. Its a matter of personal preference though. I always try and avoid what is currently ubiquitous i.e. bifold type doors but that's some weird rebellious thing coming out in me!

4under4 did you look at the panoramic doors? Each door slides individually and then can be pushed out like a bifold door. Their prices seem to be about 1k per door so your opening would be about 4k. If you want to see any of the doors go along to a grand designs/ house building type show. There's one at the NEC in march.

I'm pretty anti bi fold doors also!! Working on theory that in this country the doors will be closed 95% of time I would prefer to have more glass and less frame! We have just been to a Poole showroom and they have Reynear system - seems like really good service and quality. Think we will have a side door put in on other wall so we still get long wall fully glazed but have easy access. I reckon I can do some bartering!!

Just seen Reynaer in action and really impressed!!

I ended up with bi-folds though wasn't a big fan initially. We have 6 panels spanning about 5.5m. There are some good points honest, one of the panels acts as a back door so very easy quick access and whilst I've rarely had all of them open I find it great that I can have two wide open or 4 wide open which I've done a lot. Including Christmas Day...all that glass can make it quite hot inside even though they are coated to reduce this, and opening them cools things down quickly. I do like the look of sliding doors but would worry if the frames were quite narrow as have already had a couple of children think they were open when they weren't and smacked into them.

Hi We went with sliding because we didn't want the bifold encroaching too much indoors when they are open - they do take up a lot of space. We went with aluminium which was expensive . One thing to watch out for if you are doing a extension and are subject to building regs is that whatever you put in meets environmental standards for 'u' values. We had a heck of a time finding a product because our screens are large (each is over 2m wide) and therefore potentially very heavy too. Architect kept us right

we didn't want the bifold encroaching too much indoors when they are open Ours don't encroach indoors, as they stack up outside.

Ours stack outside too. Have you seen any in real life? We initially liked sliders but didn't like the width of the track and how visible it is when they're closed (each panel has its own track so they can slide behind one another so 4 panels say is 4 widths of track whereas bifolds are a single track). Also, we had quite a wide opening 4+m and it seemed that if you want minimal frames, you have bigger panels then less of an opening when you open them. The whole point for us was maximising the opening so for all those reasons went with bifolds. Really pleased with them.

namechange which bifold company did you go with? We've decided on bifold for all the reasons you mentioned above. Now just getting ready to take the plunge and place an order

We went with a local independent (who has supplied everyone we know locally who has bifolds!!) If you live near Cheshire I can send you a recommendation.

The Panoramic ones looks great! Really good design. I've pinned it for when we do our new kitchen.

namechange unfortunately im no where near Cheshire.

Well I've scrubbed one company off the list - Sunseeker Doors.

Their quote came through with 2 spelling errors in the Subject field.

"Quotie from Suneker".
Hmmmm unlikely to part with 6K on that basis!!

Sorry for the late reply but our opening is 4.8m, looking out we have fixed, sliding, fixed, swing door. All from Velfac and one opening, and fully glazed.
We needed a swing door as it's also our main back door, but if we preferred we could have had "bi parting doors" for similar money, where the outer two are fixed and the inner two slide apart. That could fill an opening about 5.5m wide before hitting the Max sizes.
Their sales people are very knowledgeable (unlike some window companies) but you have to deal with them via phone or email. Or you can use a local approved installer who are also very knowledgeable.

I used a company in Surrey called Skyglaze their web site is www.skyglaze.co.uk they supplied and fitted our doors and skylight they were excellent the builders recommended them and the best thing was they used a glass that was clear but stopped the heat from the sun our neighbors extension did not have this and it gets really hot, when so much glass is used I think this is really important as we do not have any Windows in the extension only doors

Hello, did anyone go with Panoramic Doors?