Tips to Select Sliding Patio Doors

Sliding patio doors are definitely top choices if there are big openings for your new doors or replacement doors. As you are carefully selecting sliding patio doors, here are some useful tips we offered to help you make the correct choices.

Sliding Patio Door Benefits

Sliding patio doors enjoy many benefits. First, they are a perfect match for big openings, in living rooms or back doors, to invite great natural light into your house. For living rooms, they divide the areas without blocking the sunshine. The divided area can be a small place for a small study room, coffee place or someplace like that. For back doors, they are good entrances for a yard barbecue or enjoying your garden view.

Secondly, they offer amazing views. The amount of sunshine and ventilation are many times of common hinged doors. More importantly, they don’t need space to swing, which makes good for both wide openings and narrow spaces.

The Frame Material of Sliding Patio Doors

The commonly seen frame materials for sliding patio doors are wood, aluminum or wood-aluminum, etc.

Wood is energy efficient. The wood frame is classic and good for a classic style of housing. Woods of different kinds with unique grains, which are also why many people favor wood sliding patio doors. What’s more, wood can last for years and have resold value, which is a good investment for now and for the coming years. However, wood requires regular maintenance. You have to paint them regularly. Also, wood can be expensive.

Aluminum is modern and strong. Nowadays, advanced techniques make aluminum frames far more energy efficient with an insulating non-metal bar (normally PA66 nylon) inserted between the exterior and interior aluminum. More importantly, it is maintenance-free. You don’t have to paint them or worry about fading. Aluminum is budget-friendly, even for a thermally broken aluminum frame. Besides, you have hundreds of color options for the surface treatment.

Wood-aluminum is a new frame type that combines both benefits of wood and aluminum with wood interior and aluminum exterior. With the combination, you can have beautiful and energy-efficient wood doors inside while it requires no maintenance. However, it can be as expensive as a wood frame or even more expensive while an aluminum frame tends to be more budget-friendly.

How to Select Sliding Patio Door

Selecting a sliding patio door is not as easy as you might think. If you go to a door shop and just see which one looks good and simply tell the manufacturer your opening size, there is less likely that you will have a good door that you won’t regret later. Here are a few factors you need to pay attention to when selecting sliding patio doors.

Focus on your budget and housing style. You surely already know the size of the sliding patio door you want. But that’s not enough. Budget is an important issue for your new door or replacement door. Make sure the price of the door is within your budget. Never make mistakes like exceeding your budget, which is risky. Besides that, you need to make sure the sliding patio door matches your housing style, like harmonious styles and colors.

Focus on its energy efficiency. An energy-efficient door will guarantee you a warm winter and a cool summer and save your bills as well. When you are selecting sliding patio doors, be aware of the energy efficiency of the whole doors. For the frame, the wood frame is the most energy efficient, then the second goes to wood-aluminum frame, then thermally-broken aluminum and the last is aluminum alloy. Glazing and sealing strips also contribute to energy efficiency. Make sure it’s a double pane with tempered glass, not a single pane. There are many options for even tempered glass. You can have decorative glass to make your door make artistic. You can have frosted glass to have your door more privacy. Get to know the quality of sealing strips and perhaps the whole sealing system if available.

Focus on its design. Sliding patio doors can be two sashes or four sashes or more. According to the width of your opening, you can ask the manufacturer to provide a few suggestions on the numbers of the sashes and how many of them are moveable. The more movable sashes there are, the more natural light can and come in, the more ventilation the room has. Or, the more fixed sashes, the friendlier the budget is. As for screens and blinds, common screens are of the same size and the material of the sliding sashes and sliding on track. Those retractable screens are like installed on the door and can be retracted invisible when closed. Blinds can be normally blinds or those installed between the glazing pane to require zero maintenance.

Other Options and Upgrades

Sliding patio doors are usually with double-pane for essential configuration, but if you want to have a more comfortable experience, you could try some upgrades as follows.

You can upgrade it to a lift and slide door. They are also sliding patio doors but with improved security and smoother operation. Lift and slide doors are also good choices when it comes to sliding doors. They are getting trendy and you can see them in many housings.

You can upgrade with blinds. Many door manufacturers also produce pretty blinds, which can be installed independently or get them inside the glass pane. Independent blinds are easy to install and clean and come at a lower price. However, build-in blinds are installed inside the glass, and almost no need to clean them and have a long lifespan. But the price is a little higher. Both kinds of blinds are available to get for many manufacturers.

You can upgrade your glazing options. Not just tempered double pane for glazing, you can even try decorative glass to have more artistic elements in your home. For energy efficiency, you can ask for pumping argon gas between the panes and even replace the aluminum spacer with an advanced non-mental spacer. Those are small upgrades on glazing but that does improve the energy efficiency a lot.