How do you choose between a bifolding door or sliding door? Whatever the project one favourite design feature in many homes today is the large glass door. Homeowners today want maximum light and a feeling of space. To achieve this, a bifolding door or sliding door is ideal. Both door options provide lots of natural light thanks to their large glass panels.
Our folding sliding doors collection for opening up your elevation.
Standard, minimal or contemporary sliders for the best possible views.
Deciding between a bifolding door or sliding door.
At Open Living, we help homeowners with a wide range of home improvement projects. These range from simply replacing an older set of doors to those extending their homes or building new ones.
Both a bifolding door or sliding door is perfect for opening up your home. Both door types connect your inside and outside spaces. What you’ll need to consider is the aesthetics of the doors when closed. Furthermore considering how the doors look closed and open helps you choose better.
A bifolding door always consists of more door panels. This is because bifolding doors need more panels than a sliding door. Sliding doors come at well over 2 metres wide. Some doors also come up to three metres high for each sliding panel. With a typical opening of three metres, you get more glass to look through as a result. Therefore a two panel sliding door gives you bigger glass than say, a 3 or 4-panel folding door.
With the British climate, you’ll find your folding doors closed for the majority of the time. Therefore you may want to consider that with closed bifolding doors, there is more visible metal. Vertical mullions on bifolding doors will be much more evident than with a sliding door.
Open and closed bifolding or sliding door considerations.
Bifolding doors come into their own when they open. Because they’re designed to fold back fully, this means that virtually all of the available opening is open to enjoy.
By comparison, sliding doors operate on a track. Therefore, some of your opening is lost when the doors are open in the area where the sliding panels slide. For new extensions, one way to overcome this by having a sliding door sliding entirely into the wall. However, for the average home, this may not always be feasible.
It’s worth considering the space both types of doors take up when open. On a folding door, when the panels are all folded back, they will encroach on either the inside or outside space in some way. Sliding doors operate on their tracks, therefore, don’t take up any space in the room or outside on the patio or garden when open.
What features do folding and sliding doors have?
Our complete range of bifolding or sliding doors feature the latest in design and innovation. Our aluminium profiles feature insulated profiles thanks to the thermal breaks that make these doors thermally efficient. So whether you choose a folding or a sliding door, this is a standard feature of both.
Aluminium is well known for its inherent strength and wide colour choice. Another advantage of aluminium is that it is much slimmer than PVCu. This means both bifolding and sliding doors from Open Living are some of the thinnest available on the market.
Bifolding doors are now available in a choice of two right up to 8 leaves. This means a choice in how your doors work, which direction they can slide in and whether you want access leaves built into them.
Sliding doors today also feature double or triple tracks. This gives you flexibility in which direction your sliding panels can move to provide more versatility to modern sliding doors than ever before.
Let Open Living help you choose your ideal door.
So if you’re still not sure whether to choose a bifolding door or sliding door, why not visit our showroom and look at the doors in action?
At Open Living, we have many years experience in providing all types of doors for many different types of houses. We can help you choose what is right to suit your budget and your home. Contact us and speak to one of our friendly staff or visit our Showroom and find out more.
