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Bi-Fold doors - anyone happy with them?


Vijay

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Hi,

 

I know there have been various posts about bi-fold doors and their airtightness issue but I still can't see a nicer solution for an opening I have of just over 3m.

 

I visited my window supplier last week to have a chat about door options and he is happy to sell me any other door I'd want but said he's never had a good quality bi-fold they've installed come back with any issues. We looked at a large slider door but in his opinion, brushes would cause more issues over time with airtightness that rubber seals.

 

So I wondered exactly what are the issues with bi-folds and has anyone had personal experience with them? I've wondered if stories of air leakage is down to cheaper units/mechanisms/hinges?

 

Cheers

 

Vijay

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Funnily enough I didn't like bi folds because of the brush seal arrangement but a neighbour has started work with a window supplier as an installer and he says their bi folds have rubber seals and work well. If anyone is interested I will find the manufacturers name etc.

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I had a set of bifold planned and changed them to french doors with side lights.

 

I had read a lot here about airtightness issues.

 

What pushed me over the edge is when I went to see them they had much thicker frames than normal windows, although this may not be the case with all makes. They also seemed quite cumbersome to fully open. Maybe people with them can comment, but how often do people actually open a whole run of these doors?

 

You san have 2.2m french doors with a 400mm sidelight on each side and have almost as large an opening with less issues and cheaper. For me it was about half the price.

 

You can also do the sliding doors that meet in the middle. These look nice, but again having played around with them they have handles which have to be turned to lock them into place and seemed a little bit fiddly. I was worried that someone would eventually break them by pushing against the friction fittings or sliding them back so the handles hit the frames. Tbf my opinion is clouded by the enormous number of times family members have come to stay and broken things. Many people still find pushing up the front door handle to engage the bolts before locking the door way too complicated!

 

 

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The lift and slide doors can be very good for airtightness.  Also, they can be easily left open for a bit of ventilation.  If you go for folding doors, do not go with a flush threshold as this seems the least airtight and most keen to snag on the ground.

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I'm just about to bite the bullet and order a 3.9m set of Solarlux sl97 bifolds. I accept they may not be the best solution from an airtightness point of view, but they're going in anyway (like the wood burner!).  The seal details are on the website - triple rubber gaskets - so I can't see them causing too much of a problem, and let's face it, they'll probably get opened and closed more in the first 10 days than the next 10 years...

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7 hours ago, Mr Punter said:

The lift and slide doors can be very good for airtightness.  Also, they can be easily left open for a bit of ventilation.  If you go for folding doors, do not go with a flush threshold as this seems the least airtight and most keen to snag on the ground.

 

I went with tilt/slide which is really a giant window rather than a door, in some ways. It gives a good positive engagement and appears to be very airtight. I haven't done my test yet but when it's blowing 50mph outside I cannot detect any air getting through, which is a heck of a lot more than I can say for the uPVC rubbish in my current house! My location is very exposed and I felt that a slider would be much safer than anything on hinges.

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14 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

I'm just about to bite the bullet and order a 3.9m set of Solarlux sl97 bifolds. I accept they may not be the best solution from an airtightness point of view, but they're going in anyway (like the wood burner!).  The seal details are on the website - triple rubber gaskets - so I can't see them causing too much of a problem, and let's face it, they'll probably get opened and closed more in the first 10 days than the next 10 years...

 

I'm pretty sure Solarlux is one of the names that was mentioned to me as a quality bifolfd ;)

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When i was looking at bi-folds, i took agood look at the seals on various one at one of the shows at the NEC. Frankly, most of them were rubbish. In many cases just stuck on strips. Only one i looked at had "proper" seals with moulded corners etc. I.e, one piece. With a decent amount of "give".

 

Why is it that most windows, dg etc have such poor sealing that takes no account of time, movement, shrinkage etc. They really ought to look to cars for novel sealing arrangements that work for a very long time.

 

The hours ive wasted trying get dg units to be draught free at 3 different houses. All just crap.

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9 hours ago, Vijay said:

 

I'll double check the warranty on the mechanisms ;)

 

Problem is that a 0.5mm movement in a mechanism is magnified by the sheer size of the doors - a 1mm gap will allow a lot of air through ..! Adjusting that out constantly and consistently will be a real problem.  

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2 hours ago, PeterW said:

 

Problem is that a 0.5mm movement in a mechanism is magnified by the sheer size of the doors - a 1mm gap will allow a lot of air through ..! Adjusting that out constantly and consistently will be a real problem.  

 

And I can imagine the suppliers having a margin of allowable movement or something to get out of warranty claims

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On 12/11/2016 at 18:17, Roger440 said:

When i was looking at bi-folds, i took agood look at the seals on various one at one of the shows at the NEC. Frankly, most of them were rubbish. In many cases just stuck on strips. Only one i looked at had "proper" seals with moulded corners etc. I.e, one piece. With a decent amount of "give".

 

There's no market pressure because the public is uneducated when it comes to air permeability. The normal fallback, regulation, isn't strong enough to make them do it properly.

 

Regulation is bad remember?

Edited by gravelld
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  • 2 years later...

Mega bump! Thinking about an extension and possible using bi-folds. This link has popped up in my browser ads - http://panoramicdoors.co.uk/product-details/

 

Looks slightly different to the usual bifold design and quite interesting and appealing, although there's not a ton of detail on the website, and the specification section is not too informative. Def one that needs seeing in person to check construction details/seals. Any body heard of this company or seen them before?

Edited by pudding
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@pudding first thing I noticed was the weight was taken on the bottom runner, when I had my bifolds made by the local door and window  company they told me they stopped using bottom rollers because they tended to get clogged with dirt, dust etc. They now use top hung rollers (German design) for a few years and never had a problem, I have to say I am way Impressed with the way mine operate. They also have compression seals all round and fully adjustable.

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