Pocket Door Plastering Problem

[Spinny]

We have an a Elisse pocket door opening installed for our utility room. This was chosen in order to create an opening in the wall without any architrave but with a pocket door - a clean contemporary look.

The pocket door metal framework from Eclisse has a plastering bead built in at the corner of the opening to support this look with plastered corners to the opening. It also has suitable roughened areas in the reveal inside the opening to allow plastering right around the corners and up to the slot where the pocket door runs.

.

However I now discover that this is positioned by Eclisse to support jointing and taping the plasterboard to a finish ! However we want and need to skim plaster onto our plasterboard and hence up to the corner of the pocket door opening. Hence it seems the built in metal plaster bead is not in the correct position to support this as it is level with the plasterboard rather than slighty proud of it by 3mm to support the skim coat.

 

So, how do I solve this ?

 

How much plaster can cover a corner bead when skimming a wall - can the plaster bead be 3mm deep beneath the plaster at the corner ? Or will it just chip and flake off ?

Could some special reinforced plaster be used in the corner area and blended into the rest of the wall skim ? Could some small 2-3mm corner bead be fixed/glued onto the eclisse metal frame at the corner ?

 

Anybody with experience of installing pocket doors without architrave ?

 

Edited May 10 by Spinny

[Temp]

I'm not a plasterer but perhaps these would reinforce the corner..

 

Skim coat bead..

https://www.profilestore.co.uk/c/render-plaster-bead/thin-coat-hook-on-bead

 

Corner tape, not sure how strong...

https://www.screwfix.com/p/diall-reinforced-corner-jointing-tape-white-30m-x-50mm/981CF?tc=UT2&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19823510542&gbraid=0AAAAAD8IdPxgoUiqaNEyp2UQAKsiCamHx&gclid=Cj0KCQjw8vvABhCcARIsAOCfwwpR9074scYSb2Y_pj_lW2CO_Ww-QYDxvjZiI5O48eAA1xb3HK5fWysaAh6KEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

 

[Spinny]

uh oh. Just looked at what is built to post a photo. Now I discover the whole bl***y wall and frame is not even true on one side of the opening.

One side the tapered edge of a piece of plasterboard is flush with the edge of the pocket door metal edge, exactly as per the installation diagram. However that vertical edge is not perfectly vertical, it lays slightly backward at an angle as you go up from floor to top by a few mm, the adjacent plasterboard fixed to the metal studs of the pocket also runs the same way. So I guess the whole of the pocket side of the frame is slightly layed back from true vertical.

 

Meanwhile on the other side of the opening, as in the last photo an untapered edge of the plasterboard is recessed w.r.t. the edge of the vertical metal frame. The metal frame on this side, the closing side, is fixed at a true vertical, and the wall also runs at a true vertical on this side of the opening.

 

The other side of the wall is currently not boarded, but if it were the plasterboard would clearly show discrepencies on that side too.

 

So the carpenter has installed the metal stud pocket and the surrounding timber studwork too presumably - on the wonk and out of true. And seemingly displaced in some way from the other side of the door opening. It is only 'a few mm' out - dunno 3-4mm out, but it is out.

 

He must have known this when it was done. Presumably he has frigged it in some way, rather than adjust surrounding timber studs, to make it look ok to casual observation. Presumably didn't want to tell the builder there was a discrepency, or told the builder who told him to botch it. More dishonesty.

 

P**** o** again. What do I do now ? Pay another carpenter to rip it all out and presumably botch it again ? Would they do it in their own houses ? 

[mistake_not]

@SpinnyDid you resolve this? Excuse my stupidity but was the actual door system ok and just had install? Or system flawed. Reason for asking as we are planning on an eclipse door system, but now may change our mind...

Edited June 2 by mistake_not

[Nick Laslett]

1 hour ago, mistake_not said:

@SpinnyDid you resolve this? Excuse my stupidity but was the actual door system ok and just had install? Or system flawed. Reason for asking as we are planning on an eclipse door system, but now may change our mind...

We have 3 pocket doors, and I spent a lot of time looking at the various options, Eclipsse is very popular and there are some good YouTube installs. 
 

 

 

Other systems I looked at were from Portman, Ermetika, and Scrigno.

https://portman-pocketdoors.co.uk
https://www.ermetika.com/en/sliding-doors

https://www.scrigno.com/en/categoria/wooden-sliding-doors/

 

This was something I was going to install myself, so I spent a lot of time looking at the install guides to see which was the easiest to install. You really want a carpenter that has experience with one of these systems or a specialist that deals with these installs specifically. 
 

In the end I did a bespoke install using the sliding door product from Smart Systems Aluminium that matched our French doors. Because I was building the stud walls from scratch, it made incorporating the doors a lot easier. The various kit options do have some neat extra features. Hafele also do a kit which gets a lot of positive ratings. 

 

https://www.hafele.co.uk/INTERSHOP/web/WFS/Haefele-HUK-Site/en_GB/-/GBP/ViewParametricSearch-Browse?SearchTerm=+pocket+door&SearchParameter=%26Category%3DhmAKAOsFdfwAAAF.B87iJvmA

 

The point of the kits is that it should remove a lot of the issues about getting everything plumb and true. 

Edited June 2 by Nick Laslett

[Temp]

We used the Eclipse on a bathroom ensuite door, although ours has timber architrave around it. The Eclipse works well for us but I would avoid sliding doors anywhere subject to frequent use. They are just so much harder and slower to open and close. 

 

Beware sliding doors also reduce the opening width by quite a bit. For example the whole door can't go into the pocket. Nor can handles on the door. There are also stops to prevent your hand/fingers being trapped between the handle and the frame when you open the door. So you need to start with a bigger opening especially anywhere Part M applies.

[ProDave]

46 minutes ago, Temp said:

We used the Eclipse on a bathroom ensuite door, although ours has timber architrave around it. The Eclipse works well for us but I would avoid sliding doors anywhere subject to frequent use. They are just so much harder and slower to open and close. 

 

Beware sliding doors also reduce the opening width by quite a bit. For example the whole door can't go into the pocket. Nor can handles on the door. There are also stops to prevent your hand/fingers being trapped between the handle and the frame when you open the door. So you need to start with a bigger opening especially anywhere Part M applies.

The devil is in the detail.

 

We used a sliding door in a previous house to comply with the (at the time) 2 doors between a kitchen and a WC.  It was a sliding door between the kitchen and a short corridor.  The door slid 100% into the pocket with a recessed finger pull on the end if you wanted to pull it out, and recessed handles each side to slide it.  And it never ever got closed.

[G and J]

9 hours ago, ProDave said:

The door slid 100% into the pocket with a recessed finger pull on the end if you wanted to pull it out, and recessed handles each side to slide it.

Interesting thread.

 

We'd like to achieve as above, which kit/supplier did you use.

 

@Nick Laslett busy researching the links you have provided....thank you

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, G and J said:

We'd like to achieve as above, which kit/supplier did you use.

I built it entirely myself not from a kit.  The only bit I bought was the rail and sliding gear I think intended for wardrobe doors. and the irnmongery.  All the woodwork I just made.

[G and J]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

I built it entirely myself not from a kit.  

👍

[Spinny]

On 02/06/2025 at 21:20, mistake_not said:

@SpinnyDid you resolve this? Excuse my stupidity but was the actual door system ok and just had install? Or system flawed. Reason for asking as we are planning on an eclipse door system, but now may change our mind...

It is Eclisse pocket doors.

I haven't resolved it yet, but is not really the fault of the pocket door system. It looks as though there must be some issue with the alignment of how it has been installed. Looks as though the pocket side is slightly leaning backward relative to the far door side. This may be because the timber studwork above the pocket side has some alignment issue.

On another section of wall I had to get the builders carpenter to plane down some studwork timbers to make the wall plumb. Unfortunately the builder always sent a low paid runner to go fetch and carry stuff from the merchant where he had his trade account. Then expected the carpenter to use whatever timber the runner had delivered to site. A good carpenter would always be checking for good straight and untwisted timber at the merchant and picking through the stock as necessary, but a runner just grabs the first stuff to hand - likely that rejected by others. You want straight timber to build straight plumb walls. I have learned to run a 1.8m level over everything anyone does. I was also advised that the merchant he used stores their timber vertically, and that this is a bad idea and leads to more bends and twists - timber should be stored horizontally.

 

I saw the Eclisse system at 2 or 3 trade shows when we were looking and was impressed by the ability to fit and remove the door, the anti-slam options and so on.

 

If you want no architrave like us it can potentially be achieved. However their system sizes are designed for tape and joint rather than a skim plaster finish and I didn't properly understand this until I phoned them up. Seems to be because they are French I think and tape and joint is all the rage on the continent. So our kit is designed to support two layers of 12.5mm plaster board on each side of the pocket (I am using Habito board).

 

These kits use metal stud and it has been designed with care to fit together properly, but inevitably there is still some twist in it. So definitely needs great care to install plumb in all 3 dimensions.

 

Also if fitting in an existing shell for renovation then existing openings and studs may themselves be out of true.