Bifold vs patio doors for your garden

If what you want is the opening genuinely gone, bifolding doors are the answer. They fold back on themselves and stack to one or both sides, leaving around 90 per cent of the width clear from inside to outside, and no other door type gets close to that. If what you want is the biggest uninterrupted pane of glass and the clearest view when the doors are shut, a sliding patio door is the answer. It runs on a stainless steel track, takes up no space at all when it is open, and on a two pane set only about half the opening is ever clear.

That is the whole trade, and for most people it settles the question. The two things that actually decide it are rarely the ones asked about in a showroom. The first is where the folded panels will sit when the bifolds are open. The second is how much frame you are prepared to look at for the ten months a year the doors are shut. There is also a coastal point that costs people money here.

How much of the opening a bifold really clears

Bifolds do not disappear when they open. The panels fold and stack, and that stack is a real object with a real thickness standing at one or both ends of the opening. On a wide rear elevation with wall either side it is barely noticeable. On an opening that ends at a corner, a downpipe, a step or the only route past the door, it decides whether you can sensibly have bifolds at all.

It is easy to measure the opening very carefully and then never measure what is beside it. It is the thing most worth checking before a survey for bifolding doors, and much of why we would rather look than quote from a photograph.

A sliding patio door has none of that problem, because nothing ever leaves the opening. One leaf slides behind another, nothing swings into the room and nothing swings out onto the patio. The price is the half of the opening that is never clear, and going from two panes to three or four changes how much opens and which side the fixed glass sits on rather than removing the limit.

The view you live with is the closed one

A garden door is open for a few weeks of a good English summer and shut for the rest of the year, so the view you actually live with is the shut one. The two look very different shut.

A five leaf bifold has four uprights standing in that view, one at every fold. A two pane slider has one. That is not a small difference across a wide opening, and it is why bifolds are almost always photographed folded back. Slimmer bifold frames do support larger panes of glass, which narrows the gap, but nothing removes the folds. It is the same frame against glass argument that decides aluminium against uPVC on a window.

For a room the family sits in all year, a sliding patio door is often the better choice than a bifold, because the door spends most of its life closed, and a slider leaves one upright in the middle of the view where a five leaf bifold leaves four. It is easy to choose from the photograph of the door wide open, then live with the other one.

What each one is like to use in January rather than in August

A sliding door is easy to use in any weather. Push it a few inches to air the room and pull it back. Nothing has to be lifted, folded or latched.

A bifold is a different proposition, because folding a whole set back to step out with a cup of tea is a chore, and a door that is a chore stops being opened. The answer is a traffic door, one leaf specified to open on its own like an ordinary door. On a set used daily rather than for a few weeks a year, specifying it is what separates a bifold that gets used from a very expensive window. Ask for it by name, because it is decided at the order stage.

Thresholds, and level access told honestly

Sliding patio doors come with standard, low and room divider threshold options. On bifolds a rebated threshold weathers best and is the sensible choice on an exposed elevation, while a flush one is far better for a wheelchair, a pram or carrying furniture through.

What nobody should promise you from a photograph is a level threshold. A flush detail only works if the drainage immediately outside the door takes the water away, which depends on the ground, the fall and the paving. It is settled on a survey at the property, because it cannot honestly be settled any other way. A rear elevation facing the sea and a sheltered courtyard get different answers.

What blown sand does to a patio door track

This is the coastal point. On a garden door the usual reason a slider starts to feel heavy is not a failed sealed unit or a broken handle. It is grit and blown sand sitting in the bottom track, and on this coast there is more of both.

That is not a reason to avoid a sliding door. It is a reason to know about the track before you buy one. A brush out every few months is very nearly the whole of the maintenance, and a swept door moves like a new one. A track that is never swept is what wears sliding patio door rollers out, and we are happy to replace those whoever fitted the door, not only on our own work.

Bifolds are not maintenance free either. More hinges, more seals and more moving parts, and on this coast it is hardware that stiffens first, years before anything happens to a frame. A slider has one thing to sweep and a bifold has several to keep clean.

Cleaning splits the same way. A slider gives fewer, bigger panes and less frame to work around. A bifold gives more panes, but folded back you can reach both faces of each one, which a large fixed slider pane does not.

When neither of them is the right answer

If the opening is wide enough for two doors but not wide enough to justify a folding set, French doors are very often the better buy, because that opening is a very common situation on the back of an ordinary Lincolnshire house. We would rather say that than quote for the bigger job.

If the doors will be opened for a handful of weeks a year, the budget goes further on the glass and the threshold than on an extra leaf. A three leaf set that is properly weathered and properly level beats a five leaf set that draughts.

Colour, and what it looks like in five years

Anthracite has become the default on a large garden door set and it does look superb against red brick or pale render. Dark finishes deserve a thought here, because salt air and strong summer light are hard on any dark coating, and a wide frame is a big flat area to notice it on. Dual colour, dark outside and white inside, is a common answer, and choosing the right colour for your windows and doors covers it properly. There are bifolding doors on real houses in our door gallery.

What we would actually advise

Choose bifolds if the point is to join the room to the garden, there is wall either side for the stack, and you will specify a traffic door. Choose a sliding patio door if the patio is narrow, furniture sits close to the opening, the shut view matters more than the open width, or you want the fewest moving parts. Choose French doors if the opening is modest.

Whichever you land on, the doors are made to your exact opening in the colour, style and glass you choose, then fitted by our own team, who take the old frames out and clean up properly before they leave. Replacement doors in a home fall under building regulations, and as a FENSA registered installer we register and certify that work for you, so the paperwork exists when a buyer's solicitor asks for it.

Have a look, or let us come and look

To talk it through against your own opening, get a free no-obligation quote and we will come out, measure up and say which of the two suits the back of your house. The styles and finishes are in the door brochures, the wider door range is on the site, and you are welcome to call in at the Piper Windows showroom on Church Lane in Winthorpe. You can also ring us on 01754 898 998. We will tell you honestly if French doors would serve you better.