French doors with side lights

[MortarThePoint]

Perhaps less popular these days than bifolds, but we are planning on French doors with side lights. All our windows run on multiples of ~600mm lights (e.g. 1800mm triple light) and have astragals. The doors reveals are 2400mm wide. There are various decisions to be made enroute and I thought I'd share the thoughts:

• widths: below is an image that shows the three options considered. Large doors do look good in isolation from the windows and has good utility (being able to pass in and out of a single door) but doesn't look so in keeping with the rest of the windows. Equal sash widths ties in well with the windows, but the glass in the door looks pretty narrow. We thought Equal glass width was the best compromise as it doesn't look too mismatched with the windows and looks more natural in itself than equal sashes. It makes the door sashes around 600mm which is narrow if opening one.
• threshold: We've gone PVCu and you can either have that as the threshold or aluminium. Both would have the top of the threshold 20-25mm higher than the floor finish. We thought black aluminium would wear better.
• vertical alignment: We thought we could focus on aligning bottom of sash or bottom of glass (Only option at top is to align tops of sashes*). The side lights have PVCu frames at their bottom. Alignment with the doors is easy if the doors have a PVCu threshold and you want the bottom of door and window sashes level. Using the aluminium threshold, you need to mount the threshold ~25mm higher than the bottom of window frame to have their sash bottoms level. We plan to do this and use a 25mm hard wood packer on top of the hard wood cill we are going to use. That will then need to be dressed with a colour matched trim [* you could use the thicker door sash profiles for the side light bottom and top, but we weren't so keen on that]
• astragals: equally divide the door glass or the window glass. We preferred the latter (as drawn below).

Width options: All total 2.4m x 2.1m. left to right equal sash width, equal glazing width and large doors (1500mm for pair).

 

Which choices would you have made?

Edited September 15, 2021 by MortarThePoint

[Redoctober]

The right hand option -  glazing with wide doors for me.?

Edited September 15, 2021 by Redoctober

[Declan52]

I have French doors like this on my sunroom. Make the doors standard width and the sidelights whatever width is left. A 600mm door is not practical so you have to open both doors to enter/leave which will drive you insane. I have one of my doors locked permanently, only ever opened when it's really sunny, and use just the single door as the main access. 

[MortarThePoint]

5 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

I have French doors like this on my sunroom. Make the doors standard width and the sidelights whatever width is left. A 600mm door is not practical so you have to open both doors to enter/leave which will drive you insane. I have one of my doors locked permanently, only ever opened when it's really sunny, and use just the single door as the main access. 

 

I've wondered about that. One of the French doors is in the kitchen and there is a normal pedestrian back door at the other end of the kitchen so that's the access. I can't see why we would open these unless it's a sunny day and we want both open anyway. You never really know how you use somewhere until you've lived there though.

 

Carrying furniture about is a consideration though as the total opening will be around 1200mm. Should that be wide enough for must things?

[Declan52]

My main back door is 4m away and it was meant to be the route into the house but anybody who visits walks past it and comes in via the sunroom. 

1200mm should be wide enough for carrying furniture through.

 

[bassanclan]

If it's only an occasional use door for the odd day in summer then go for the middle option. Personally I would go for the widest doors.

In the best of summer i don't want the outside heat over 22c+ getting into my house so I want the doors closed, which is one reason I don't really like bifolds, especially on southerly elevations.

 

[MortarThePoint]

41 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

My main back door is 4m away and it was meant to be the route into the house but anybody who visits walks past it and comes in via the sunroom. 

1200mm should be wide enough for carrying furniture through.

 

No full size snooker table for me a Pot Black chipboard special though in my case a Pot White

[MortarThePoint]

7 minutes ago, bassanclan said:

If it's only an occasional use door for the odd day in summer then go for the middle option. Personally I would go for the widest doors.

In the best of summer i don't want the outside heat over 22c+ getting into my house so I want the doors closed, which is one reason I don't really like bifolds, especially on southerly elevations.

 

It will be for occasional use. You have to walk past the intended back door to reach these doors.

[craig]

I'd personally go without sidelights, set of french doors 1200mm width each sash and then vertical divisions on the doors to make it look like it is split into 4

 

The below is glass division

 

[MortarThePoint]

2 hours ago, craig said:

I'd personally go without sidelights, set of french doors 1200mm width each sash and then vertical divisions on the doors to make it look like it is split into 4

 

The below is glass division

 

 

Nice idea, that hadn't occurred to us

[bassanclan]

You might not get a manufacturer willing to risk that installation. There is a hell of a lot of weight of glass on those hinges!

[PeterW]

19 minutes ago, bassanclan said:

You might not get a manufacturer willing to risk that installation. There is a hell of a lot of weight of glass on those hinges!

errr @craig is a manufacturer .. ?

 

I like that option, and I would really look at that in future as I’ve always preferred French doors not hung on intermediate frames. 

[craig]

5 minutes ago, PeterW said:

errr @craig is a manufacturer .. ?

It’s roughly 100kg per sash, it’s not “heavy”, I’ll go over 200KG per sash but only on special items with little use.

Edited September 15, 2021 by craig

[IanR]

I like the wide door option, but what angle can you open them too? Ie. Is the frame set flush with the outer face of the wall so you can almost get them to 180. With the side lights you should be able to open them right up even if recessed into the reveal.

[craig]

50 minutes ago, IanR said:

 

I like the wide door option, but what angle can you open them too?

 

Depends on position/system but you should be able to open 180° if on outer edge, otherwise slightly more than 90°.

Edited September 15, 2021 by craig

[bassanclan]

I only brought the weight issue up as I had an issue with 1000 wide R9 double doors and had to have double glazed instead of triple glazed i had elsewhere.

[craig]

It’s a common issue on narrow frames, uPVC and frankly shit hinges.