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Choosing the right Door style – Some tips and advice

At Frameless Glass Curtains, we’ve worked with many homeowners looking at the different types of doors available to them when renovating their home or building a new extension.

When doors are this close together, the sight lines of the meeting doors are obvious.

The right choice of door is important. Nowadays a door is not just a door – what you choose can affect how you use your available space inside and outside your home as well as your garden.

It’s also worth considering the buoyancy of the property market in London, the South East and other areas as well. The right choice of door for your home can have a bearing on the price of your home should you sell it in the future.

Garden views are hugely important to homeowners today. One needs only to look at the many home renovation shows, publications and websites. Most of these will create homes and extensions based around maximising space, making the most of the views from the home and adding value to our properties.

There is no doubt that a door, whether a Bifolding doors, sliding door or french door offers a better solution than a window. So what door options are available to you?

Bifolding Doors

Folding doors are the types that either concertina back or, like our frameless glass doors comprise separate door leaves that slide back independently and then stack neatly to the one side.  These are also known as folding sliding doors, slide and turn doors or simply folding doors.

Sliding Patio Doors.

A sliding patio door ranges from two leaves right up to four or sometimes more. There are a number of sliding door systems available in the market. These range from patio doors designed so panels slide neatly behind each other. The other more sophisticated option is for doors that slide completely out of view into a wall.

We have previously written about the difference bifolding doors or sliding patio doors, click here to find out more.

French Doors

These are the traditional hinged doors founding properties old and new. French doors feature glazing bars, side lights or toplights and either open in or out.

The French doors are often the cheapest option but in our view offer a home the least versatility and flexibility.

What door offers the best view?

In our experience all doors offer a view out to your outside space, however the folding or sliding door provide the better view.

This is generally because folding and sliding doors are fitted to far larger structural openings than French doors, therefore maximising the possible view thanks to larger glass panels, bigger widths and taller heights.

There are pros and cons to both folding and sliding doors when made of aluminium, pvcu or timber. Folding doors when closed will give you several door leaves all connected together when closed. So whilst the view will better when open, it may not be the best when closed.

Sliding doors may be better if the view from the closed door is better for you because they allow larger glass panels.

What doors suit what properties?

French doors you may find more suitable to traditional properties such as cottages. It is true French doors lend themselves better to greater variety in glass design such as Georgian bars and leaded windows.

If a French door is what will work best in your particular home then this may be the better option.

Both bifolding for sliding doors might be considered better for the modern extension, but in our experience these can work in the older home as well. Colour choice, profile types and the overall door design can make the difference between a modern door working well with an older property or one that is unsympathetic to it and stands out from it.

One advantage of folding sliding doors is that they open up the space. They can even be used internally to separate a space and open it up as needed. With a folding door and one of our frameless glass doors, it’s perfectly possible to create an additional living space in the home.

Sliding doors are also great but most people will opt for the stacking type of doors. Whilst the larger the door the larger the open element of it, there will always be visible doors when fully opened. This may not be as preferable as stacking folding doors that are all opened and neatly stacked on the one side.

Let us help you choose your prefect door.

At Frameless Glass Curtains, we offer innovative folding doors that are designed to maximise the space and views from your home thanks to their glass construction and minimal use of visible aluminium.

But we also provide the very best in aluminium swing doors and aluminium bifolds giving you a one stop shop solution for your home.

We’ve helped transform thousands of homes all over the UK with our range of modern, thermally efficient and secure door products. Contact us today and let us work with you to help you create your ideal home extension or renovation.

We also offer a full range of aluminium windows, bifolding and sliding doors,
and front doors as FGC Bespoke Aluminium.

Visit the FGC Showroom

You can now visit our showroom in Strood, Kent.

The full range of Frameless products are on display in wide variety of configurations.

We request you contact us to make an appointment before visiting to avoid overcrowding.

Find out more about the FGC Kent showroom.

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What our customers say

We have patio doors and a large matching picture window, these are well designed, manufactured and installed and are noticed and acknowledged by all visitors to our house. The customer service is also excellent so highly recommend these products and

Phillip Coutts
Phil
Putting a frameless glass walls between our South facing lounge and dining room conservatories was one of the best things we have ever done in our house. When shut, they keep out the cold in winter and, most importantly, the heat on very hot summer days. When open during sunny winter days, the heat warms the whole house and reduces our heating bills significantly. FGC are a marvellous friendly company. Very efficient and a pleasure

Heather Glasgow
Heather

All of our dealings with FGC have been great. They are professional, friendly and accommodating. Our glass curtain is wonderful and we love it even more than we thought we would. The few little settling in issues we’ve had have been dealt with so quickly and their technical team are incredibly easy to deal with. We can’t praise them highly enough and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend

rhona mead
Maisie
With regards to feedback, the pre-sales advice and support from Adrian was excellent and we found it really valuable to visit the factory and see the demonstration doors. Furthermore, the installers were very professional, on time, polite, tidy, hard working and went out of their way to ensure we were comfortable operating the doors before they left. The only negative experience was the survey, feedback I shared with Adrian as we needed his involvement to

Great all-round service. From measuring, communication to installation. Not a speck of dirt left in our shop (we are a retail space). Installed in no time at all, staff were very polite and friendly. Very pleased. Finished door looks

A Springer
Pearspring
We are delighted with our FGC doors even though the construction of the room is still not yet completed – friends and family visiting our new Garden Room are all commenting vey positively on how amazing the doors look. With the beautiful summer we are having, it is a real pleasure to be able to open up the whole of the front of the room, enjoy the garden and let in the warm summer breeze.

Glass Curtains have caused a talking point up and down the village but nobody has knocked on the door yet. We are very pleased with them and thank your teams for their timing and workmanship

Mr R
Mr R, Fareham

We are absolutely delighted with our frameless glass doors. They have transformed our living area in terms of light and space, giving a contemporary feel. The whole process has been very efficient and the fitters who came to install the doors were excellent. I would definitely

Angie Barker
Angie
Contacted Frameless Glass Curtains (FGC) to have the existing wooden doors into the lounge and dining rooms of our home replaced with clear glass. The reasons being twofold, firstly being to open up the hallway and secondly to make the most of the natural light that floods the rear of our south-facing property. Having taken time to investigate the market, we down-selected FGC to undertake the work; our decision being fully vindicated by the quality

Ian SIMPSON
Ian
We wanted to connect two room – a ‘sun room’ and living room -by replacing a large window with some glass doors. We contacted local suppliers and Googled ‘glass partitions’. Local suppliers weren’t much help, however the Google came up with just what we wanted – frameless glass doors. We contacted Gary for a price. He arranged to come and do a survey the following week – 600 mile round trip – arrived on time.

Thanks you for everything FGC did on this project for us.  We found you from an on-line search which doesn’t always identify helpful or committed suppliers, especially where the requirement is small or simple as this one was..  FGC were both helpful and committed.  Thank you especially for progressing things much quicker that the weeks you first quoted to meet our programme.   Paul and his colleague (sorry didn’t get his name), where very good

 We were delighted with the service and standards from Frameless Glass Curtains – everyone at the Company responded really well and work was done on time with minimum of fuss. Workers were polite, did a great job and left everything clean afterwards – and the windows look amazing! We would certainly recommend Frameless Glass Curtains   Keith and Tina,  Sussex May 2016

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Published on March 20, 2016

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