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A Bifolding or Sliding Door? – Choose a Frameless Bifold

Torn between a new bifolding or sliding door for your home?  We suggest that you consider a Frameless Bifolding Door.

Only the unique slide and pivot opening action of a frameless bifolding glass door can provide you with the benefits of both a sliding door and a bifolding door.

The special way a frameless bifolding door slides and pivots is far better than a regular aluminium bifolding door and provides more advantages than a sliding patio door.  We also believe that they look cleaner, sharper and better.

Frameless glass doors – as good as a bifolding or sliding door.

Frameless Glass Patio Doors Oxford

Both bifolding doors and sliding patio doors have their advantages and compromises. A bifolding door is ideal for opening up an entire wall but in the closed position gives you many door panels and lots of visible aluminium.

A sliding patio door will give you lots of glass, better views and fewer visible mullions. However, unless the doors slide completely into a wall, you will only get 60% of the doors as a full opening to enjoy.

Frameless doors give you both the full structural opening and the lack of visible mullions. However, they also do more.

Frameless doors look better and work better than bifolding or patio doors.

One of the biggest trade-offs with an all-aluminium folding door is the amount of visible hardware.  If you are looking for doors that look clean and slick, the protruding prominent hardware on a regular door is very noticeable.

A bifolding door will show much more than a sliding door, where usually only the pull handles are in view.  Study a folding door carefully, and you’ll see several critical components inside and out that clutter up what is supposed to be a modern looking door.  Here is what components you will find visible on a folding door that you do not see on a frameless bifolding door.

Visible door hinges.

A conventional bifolding door needs two or three hinges that connect the panels to each other.

Some doors offer smaller hinges than others. Other bifolding door providers have tried to make the hinges more discreet by colour matching them. The other disadvantage of the hinges is that when the doors are folded back together, they can take up quite a lot of space.

Visible door magnets.

Regular bifolding doors use magnets to keep the doors together when fully folded back.

Some systems provide quite discreet (but weaker) magnets; others provide heavy metal ones in contrasting colours that stand out. Frameless glass doors do not rely on any face applied magnets to keep the doors together.  Each leaf is designed to stay open at 90 degrees when the doors are opened.

Visible pull handles and lever handles.

Any conventional bifolding door bigger than three panels needs extra intermediate handles. Each extra door leaf needs a lever handle and an additional pull handle. The lever handle is required to lock the middle leaves, and the D handles are used to pull the doors together before you can lock them.

All lever handles and D handles are different. Some are separate; some are combined, and some even have additional cylinders and keys. Frameless bifolding and sliding doors do not. There are no additional locking points required.

Visible rollers and guides.

Standard aluminium doors have visible running gear such as rollers and guides.  With some products, these can look very bulky indeed and are completely exposed.

Frameless glass doors rely on clever engineering with hidden hardware and other components enabling our doors to slide, turn and fold effortlessly.

Frameless glass doors have only one handle.

Study a frameless bifolding door, and the first thing you will notice is hardly any visible hardware. No hinges, no lever handles, no intermediate handles. In fact, the only handle a frameless glass door needs is the main handle that locks the traffic door.

The ingenious way our frameless glass doors are designed means you get all the security of a conventional aluminium bifolding door with none of the visible aluminium it needs to be secure and none of the additional hardware.

Best of all our frameless glass doors are tested to the latest security and weather standards providing protection and peace of mind.

By comparison, a patio door will be fitted with either one or two handles, but to lock and move such heavy doors often requires and large and bulky handle.

A bifolding door and a patio sliding door in one frameless door.

Our frameless bifolding doors give you no visible mullions, no visible hardware and the folding and sliding operation of both a bifolding door and a sliding patio door.

If you would like to see one of our doors in action or would like further information, please contact us.

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

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

We are absolutely thrilled with the doors and thank you all very much. The service has been exemplary from the office to the surveyor to Mick & John fitting. We would not hesitate to recommend you. Mr & Mrs N,

Mr and Mrs N

On the day of installation your fitters arrived on time and commenced with the installation. They were courteous and polite and left the work area clean and tidy. I would be happy for you to use the installation as a promotional example of your work.

Your fitters were on time on site and I managed to speak with them before they started. They were very helpful and offered me a solution for a small problem we had regarding the level of the bottom track, I was impressed that we found the best solution and they agreed to proceed with the work without any hesitation. Their tools were left in one corner so they are not on the way of anyone,

A great product from a great company. Friendly and efficient service from day

Ian Greenfield
Ian G

I can not fault the FGC team and most importantly the doors! We love our new Frameless Glass Curtains. We had a few delays on our project and adjusting the install date was never any problem for FGC. Couldn’t be

Matt Hodgson
Matt H
Couldn’t be happier with the product, it really has enhanced the vision that we had for our lounge and our garden. I was also so impressed with the manner and knowledge of your fitters who were not only very engaging but were also so knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the item they were installing. It clearly wasn’t just about a job, it just seemed to be about the ethos of the company, your management and the

Jon Roberts
As to how we were from initial contact (were we polite)?   Initial contact was great!  You may remember that we first visited one of your existing customers in Henley.  I honestly can’t remember the ladies name but she was really helpful, was happy to invite us round the next evening and was clearly delighted with the finished product.  We subsequently (next weekend) arranged to come over to your manufacturing site and spent some time

Thank you.  It is fabulous

J Comley (Margate)
J Comley (Margate)
When it has been sunny we have made full use of the new doors and they have transformed our relationship with the outdoor space. The design and colour of the doors has modernised the look of the back of the house especially now we do not have lashings of uPVC everywhere. We were very happy with the service from start to finish. It was refreshing to meet a boss of a company who was honest

We used FGC to manufacture and install frameless glass doors on all three sides of a large terrace bay. The design was complex and required a flexible and innovative approach to their existing designs. The result was outstanding – clear uninterrupted views over the countryside and a flexible opening pattern which allows fresh air no matter the weather. FGC worked well with the architects and builders on this major project and have provided a responsive

Jonathan Paine
JP
We would like to say how pleased we are with our fabulous new FGC doors and conservatory.  We thought the transformation would be great, but it’s only once they’re in that we’ve been able to see the full glory of the design – and our view!  We’ve had all the making-good done now, taken off all the plastic film and the result is we have beautiful, draught-proof doors and a lovely, contemporary conservatory. And we’d

Mr R

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Published on January 12, 2017

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