Bifold owners - I have a question

[whattodoherenow]

If you have bifold doors, how often do you open them all the way along?

We're choosing between bifolds and sliding doors. I'd rather have sliding doors as there is less frame and more glass but the downside is that you can't open them all the way along. But really how often do you do that??

All opinions very welcome on pros and cons of both. Thank you!

Hi, I'm no longer the owner of bi-folds but a previous owner. We actually opened ours all the way as often as the British Summer would allow. We have more crittal style in our current one (Aluminium couldn't afford the proper steel ones.) and we keep them open most of the time in the summer and while I do love the look of them closed I miss the being able to open up the whole of the back of the house in the summer.

My m-i-l has sliding doors and they are nice too though.

I have our bifold doors open from about April to September unless raining

As often as possible- I love them!

We have ours open a lot.

Yes, very regularly, especially at the moment when we are all at home.

But if you prefer the look of sliders then get sliders. Any door is closed more than it is open!

Very often! I much prefer bifolds for that reason!

I've had bifold twice. Never again. Once put in by us when they were just becoming popular and they never really worked properly. We very rarely had them open all the way. Next one was already in the house and probably a budget one though it was real wood - meaning it warped and can't recall having that one open all the way much either.
I have three sets of traditional wood french doors now and they are open all the time, so it's not a case of me not liking the doors open. Next house I'll put crittal style in - love that look.

It partly depends on the placing and function of the doors. If you have a separate back door then the following doesn't apply, but our bifolds also act as our back door and it's very practical to have the final panel open independently. Sliders would be impractical for us as we'd have to open them every time we wanted to take the bin out etc.

Almost never! We're on our second house with a set. In the first house we were quite 'early adopters' and they were specified by our architect. We didn't know enough to insist on the option to just open one panel, and it was a bit of a pain having to have them concertinaed up to get them open just a bit to let the dc out to the garden. Fortunately we had another set of ordinary french windows from the sitting room so used those much more.

In this house we have the classic huge set right across the back of the kitchen extension (put in by previous owner of the house.) I love them for the light and views of the garden etc, but we've had them open all the way about twice in 5 years. We mostly have one panel open all day every day from March - October for air and access, and that's far less hassle than opening the whole thing up.

So my advice would be that they're great, but make sure one panel is separately openable as a door!

Ours are open most days as it's been such nice weather - i love them but I also like sliders

Ps width of my bi folds are 3.7 but if I had a much wider opening I'd go for sliders

Lots! I love sitting watching tv with the doors open. It’s like being outside but less chilly and glare from the sun

We had a choice due to extending. The opening is 4.5m. Architect specified bifolds and after much pondering and viewing went for sliders which had three large panes. Neighbour up the road had similar extension and went for bifolds. They really regret it and having seen theirs we are really pleased

The only thing to swing it for bifolds is if the opening is fairly small and then you might want to maximise the opening you have

We have panoramic doors and We have ours open all the time.

@MarieG10 we're about to build an extension with a similar opening to yours. Have ordered sliders but having second thoughts having seen SILs bifolds. Why do you prefer your sliders? How many of your panes slide?

Interesting points about the size of opening being quite an important consideration when choosing. Our gap for the doors is 4.3 and if we had sliders the bit that would open would be about 2.8.

I love mine and have them wide open a lot.

My opening is only 2.8 m though which makes a difference I think. I have a separate opening door and it is great to have a door that opens independently.

We have 5m I think and have it open all the way most of the warm months- and in winter we do it when it is sunny and dry and want to get air in the house.

My friend has just had an extension and had pocket doors put in. The windows are four panels and two panels each go back into each wall. It means she can slide one panel open if she wants to just pop outside. She can slide one back, two back, three back or all four.

We have ours open a lot, but agree the traffic door is a must with them too. Completely agree that sliders are lovely, but only on a larger opening. We have about 3.5m so sliders wouldn't really have worked.

@.

@Graffitiqueen

Well...people will all have their own view but we discussed with a number of people including our builder (who was excellent)and specialist companies

With sliders, you get a less interrupted view as less frames. They are also a lot more robust as they slide in a fixed rail and didnt have interconnecting fastenings like bifolds which can wear in time. Each slider is 1.5m and we have two sliding and stack in the fixed left. We have vertical blinds as well and they stack back and cover about 70cm of the left fixed pane which looks fine as going into a corner.

With bifolds, when stacked back they are all over either inside or outside the rail. The weight of the frames and glass is tremendous and is all on the moving joints at the bottom. Our builder said they are far more likely to fail as a result compared with sliders. But they would have also blocked part of the patio outside for us. The neighbour was concerned as he found the glass on his bifolds thinner than our sliders...and it was to reduce the weight on the joints.

We didn't go for the internal blinds either...again have a high failure rate after a few years...in fact a friend of mine had just had theirs replaced under warranty as they failed at 18 months....which meant new glass for each one!!

We are really happy with them and we know we made the right choice. We have an opening of circa 3m and that is loads. When open it feels like you are sat in the garden as we have chairs by them.

@MarieG10 thanks! Which brand of sliding windows so you have? We wanted rationel but can only have one lane sliding with them.

With bifolds you do need to to choose a good brand which means they will be expensive. We had Sunflex and they worked very well for the 10 years when we sold the house. They slid really easily and we had them as much as we could - weather permitting.

@Graffitiqueen

Ours were sourced by our builder from Northern Building Plastics. www.nbp.co.uk as were our windows..very happy.

We looked at Express Bi folding doors which were great but very very expensive.