5m Sliding Door - 2 panel setup too heavy?

[djb85]

Hi

We have an opening of 5m x 2.4m and thinking of filling with a 2-panel Aluminum Lift & Slide system (each door 2.5mx2.4m) - double glazed with one panel fixed.

However, we're concerned that it will be very heavy door and not easily operated by kids. The alternative is go with 3 panels but that adds an extra divider and like the simple look of the 2-pane setup.

Does anyone have any experience with this kind of setup or similar?

You won't have much of an opening, half will always be a big window. 3 panes will get a bigger opening, bifolds a full opening. I would go for three panes and 2 or 3 tracks for that reason.

That's true but for the 3 panes you will have 2 uprights/frames which isn't as clean a look... And where I live there are few days in the year you'll have it fully opened.

Our concern is more the potential weight of a 2.5mx2.4m door in terms of difficulty to operate it.

@djb85 , I have door’s slightly larger than that between my bedroom and balcony which are 2 panel. I absolutely adore waking up in the morning and having such an uninterrupted view of the glories outside my window. ☺️ I’m not particularly strong and don’t have any problem at all opening the door. I disagree that the opening will be small, it’s the same size as many patio doors in entirety.
Directly underneath by our dining table we have bi-fold doors with 5 panels, it’s lovely on a nice day to open our room up so much to the garden and we don’t need a dining table in the garden which I find convenient, they were the right doors in that spot but when closed the view is interrupted somewhat by the panels.

That's great to hear @Lovepeaceunderstanding

Are your doors Aluminum and would they be 2.4m high or shorter?

I have doors a similar size - three panel, and I find them heavy as it is. Dread to think how heavy two panel would be! We were initially going to go for two panels as I preferred the look of them until it was pointed out to me you tend to look through the center of a door/ window and where you have two panels that’s where the dividing line is.

Our doors are 2.5m high and 4.3m across so a little narrower than yours.

We have a 5 m x 2.5 m aluminium triple glazed Schuco slider - both 2.5 m panels slide, neither is fixed. They're both very smooth and easy to open. We have lots of low profile, floor to ceiling openers throughout the house and they're all very easy to operate even though they're huge, heavy units. They offer excellent uninterrupted views over the open countryside. Worth every penny.

We have almost the same as the above poster with two panel, triple glazed, 5m x 2.5m but it's Internorm lift and slide one panel is fixed. We have lovely chairs sitting in front of the fixed window and have pot plants on the patio on the other side then overlooking the garden - it's my favourite spot to sit in the house. I can move the door with one finger it's so light. We did test it out at a showroom and were very surprised how easy they were to move.

We found our 3 panel doors quite heavy to slide but it’s absolutely brilliant when we open 2/3 which is a wider view than 1/2 for the two panels. The divider lines don’t bother me at all. Ours used to be 2 panel with one slide and other fixed and definitely current set up is preferable with the flexibility of opening both. 2 panels is fine however - our friend has these but they also somehow have two very ugly handles on both sides which makes it very unattractive.

Those big panels can feel like a workout if the rollers aren’t spot on, even if the system itself is fine. I had smoother movement after getting the rollers swapped through apolloslidingdoors.com/services/RollerReplacement, so I stopped worrying about the weight and focused on good hardware. A solid lift-and-slide setup with quality rollers should keep things moving without much effort.