Tell me about your bifolds

[LookImAHooman]

We’re about to start shopping for bifolds for a new extension . I’ve seen a couple of options online but would appreciate recommendations and anything to be aware of from experience .

Width will be just over 3.5m, white finish, and budget is a consideration. Ideally we’d like integral blinds but am interested in what people have done about blinds/alternatives as well as we really are starting from scratch.

All pointers most welcome!

We have two of them - each just a normal door width. One came from Wickes, the other B&Q. One had very few instructions and we had to do some serious internet digging to get them. Both took days to prime/varnish/paint. One set the mid hinges are forever coming loose.

Neither are perfect (we had to reverse the top rail connector for one as the doors wouldn't lie flush against the wall) but they do the job (after a lot of faffing).

I suspect you get what you pay for; these were both rather less than £100.

Good luck!

We got integral blinds and would say to remember you lose a couple of inches of glass at the top (depending on height of the doors obvs) when the blinds are up. Sounds obvious but makes a difference

moonbells Crikey. I didn’t realise you could even get them for those prices We’ve seen some at 3k, which we’re using as a ballpark, but I have no idea what that’s like relatively.

Widow thanks, good point. We fell foul of this once on a normal window as we just lost too much. Had a google and some of the options do seem more compact than expected. Do you like yours? Did you look at other options?

We have 4m of bifolds - I wouldn't have integral blinds because as a pp says you can see them even when they're up - which I think detracts from the glass / view. Think about how you use the outside space to determine which way they should fold.

I love ours. They were roughly £1k per metre and had no problems at all.

Aluminium bifolds, integral blinds. Cost was couple grand. Went aluminium as something about wood/other metals warping expanding and issues related to that. Not sure how true that it. But they’ve been good thus far.

Not getting the issue described above re blinds. I feel like I need to go look at ours again and reassess - clearly not bothered me thus far! I don’t know I’m tired and they’re downstairs and I’m in bed. I’ll look tommorow!

Plus point re blinds is that it saves on dusting and smalll kids faffing with them.

Verdict is really happy with them and would recommend bifolds, I guess they’ve become the new French door for a reason (thanks grand designs!)

I’ve decided against bifold and going for French doors instead

I’ve seen/heard so many problems with them that it’s put me off. Creaking, whistling, drafty... I don’t think a lot of them will age well.

Also we don’t have the weather in the U.K. to make full use of them open. Are you South facing? I’d rather enjoy a French door ajar to let in breeze on a mild day. Whereas opening the bifold would be freezing! It’s kinda all or nothing with bifolds, so consider if you have another window to open instead. Wwyd if you needed to get some extra ventilation for frying a steak etc?

Depending on how they open they can take up a lot more space than Frenchies. We are also planning to get a cat and so would want to put a cat flap in future which you can’t do with bifolds (we have no other back door) you have to make a hole in the wall instead!

Sorry to be a Debbie downer but I do think you need to think carefully about the pros and cons of bifolds versus French or sliding doors.

^ sorry only concentrated on the negatives there that have put me off! But just wanted to say they obviously do look beautiful and are the best option in terms of aesthetics and bringing the outside in, so can totally understand why you want them.

We've had bifolds for 9 years, and had no problems with them at all. They're aluminium - we didn't even look at any other option. We don't have blinds or curtains - no-one from outside can see in, and the internal layout means we're not facing them at night, so it doesn't matter. Ideally I'd like curtains, but there's not enough clear wall space to draw them back to. It's totally fine without (for our layout/use of space).
@ PurpleFlowersInMyHair - you can open just one door like a French door, so you can come in and out, or leave it ajar. It doesn't have to be 'all or nothing'. (Caveat- we have an odd number of doors - don't know if this is still the case with an even number, but can't see why not).
We are north facing, and still get plenty of use of them fully open - of course some summers are better than others, but there are always nice days. And this summer they were a godsend - we had them open until we went to bed, every day!
I don't see why you couldn't put a catflap in them (vs a french door)? You already take into account the depth of the handle when folding them back, so as long as the flap was no deeper than that, I can't see why there would be an issue. (Unless you had integral blinds, of course). Whether you'd want to aesthetically is another matter. We put the cat flap through the wall, and it's far less intrusive, but it is in a hidden away corner...
The big consideration vs French doors is where they 'go' when they're open. Ours needed to open left to right from an internal perspective (to allow easy access to the single door if we wanted to use it like a normal door), but from the outside it made more sense for them to open right to left. The inside perspective won as we figured we'd need the convenience of quick access more than we'd need the visual appeal of them being stacked one side of the opening rather than the other.

Bah - no paragraphs. Sorry!

Yes, it's not all or nothing. We have 4 doors (no single door) but we can just open 2. Probably not much difference in the amount of air that comes in from outside than opening a back door / French door.

My own view is that they're better from a security point of view too. We decided not to have a single access door as you normally have a handle on the outside (as well as the inside) for a traffic door - similar to handles on a set of French doors. This is often how people gain access to houses - break off the handles and play around with the locking mechanism - at least that's what we were told. We don't have any handles / locking mechanism on the outside of the doors which feels very secure. Our house was broken into before we put bifolds in so we were v security conscious.

No draughts, no issues. We also have aluminium.

Don't get anything other than aluminium. (Tradesman DH and I've lost count of the times he's advised people this.)

We have french doors because they are much thinner framed and you get signficantly more light through when they are closed - there are a few days a year where it would be great to open up the whole space, but the rest of the time opening half is perfect and it definitely gives us a “lighter” look in all sense of the word.

Bifolds aren’t all or nothing. The final pane is hinged to open and close like a conventional door.

Our bi folds are on order with integral blinds (blinds are on a 4 week order 😭 so if you do go for blinds bare that in mind as they are made seperatly to the doors) We have three doors with one opening singularly so not all or nothing...😊

We've got wooden bifold that look like French doors.
Mostly we have one door open but this summer we had lots of days with them all pulled back.
They look a bit like these.

How often would you open them - posted this on another thread so apologies for repetition - I know this summer was glorious but we had a family party in April and had them fully open for the first time this year - but from then until probably mid September we had them open at some point every day (we're in Manchester, not well known for its weather ), some weekends we had them open from as soon as we were up until 9 or 10pm. The back of the house does face south west though so it's lovely when the sun is out.

What a day! Sorry for radio silence and thank you all so much for your contributions.

Purple - they’re not going in a kitchen and the cat flap is in the french doors in the kitchen, so that’s that all sorted. We’re also hoping they’ll be easier for young DC to navigate than the kitchen french windows with steps outside

Newkitchen very useful indeed to know. Thanks for the heads up there.

Not south facing, unfortunately, but any summer even remotely like this and they’d be open a lot, plus we love the idea of all the light. I think I’m even more in two minds than before about integral blinds! My gut says yes, but... We do need something there, really. What do people have otherwise?

I wouldn’t go for bifolds, I have had them before but now moved, wouldn’t get them again, they often go wrong and look a bit naff and suburban. I guess they will go out of fashion in a while to.

I wouldn’t go for bifolds, I have had them before but now moved, wouldn’t get them again, they often go wrong and look a bit naff and suburban. I guess they will go out of fashion in a while to.

We have some Origin bifold doors with internal blinds and love them. We have 3 small boys and it would be a pain if they weren’t internal! Also we felt it was a cleaner look to not have anything like blinds or curtains around the doors.

Ours are floor to ceiling with the lintel at 1st floor level which I would definitely recommend.

Also brands like Shucco and Origin can make each door up to 1.2m wide so for your opening you should be able to get away with 3 larger doors - more glass and less metal 👍

Una that’s fab, thanks. We’ll go and check out those brands

Aluminium, warm core. Try Oxford Trade Frames.

toosoonforsnow
What company did you use for your bifolds - they look great.