What to look for when buying bi-fold doors

melb

Hi there we are going to be starting having a ground floor extension built at the back of our house and will be having bi-fold doors - they will be about 4 metres wide and we want them in Aluminium.

So far we have looked at them in 2 local companies - Express in Leeds and Folding-Sliding Doors in Bradford and are going to hopefully look at other places to compare quotes etc.

Is there anything I should be looking out for or any questions that I should be asking as to be honest so far they all look pretty similar. One of the companies had rollers at top and bottom which made sense to me to lessen the load on one set but apart from that I have no idea.

We are wanting a completely level threshhold from inside to outside patio.

Also as we are about to embark on the huge expense of an extension (which will be used as a garden room mainly but with dining table , settee etc) has anyone got any tips on questions to ask prospective builders when they come to give a quote as I read on here a lot of poor people who encounter problems and are then advised of what they should have done.

Planning has been approved.

Many thanks for any advice

chappers

The fitting companies are the customer service side, which is obviously important but you seem to be asking about the windows themselves, which manufacturers are we talking about and what sort of price range.

melb

the 2 I mentioned in my post - Express in Leeds and Folding-Sliding Doors in Bradford . they both manufacture their own doors.

The cost is about £4000

System

U-Values of the whole doorset (lots will quote you the glass figures!)
warranty, etc
although these companies are making the doors, it's more than likely they are using a system from a manufacturer, you usually have to ask about this as they hardly ever have it obvious.
I'll be honest and say I hate these doors! good luck

badgeraudio

melb wrote: »

Hi there we are going to be starting having a ground floor extension built at the back of our house and will be having bi-fold doors - they will be about 4 metres wide and we want them in Aluminium.

So far we have looked at them in 2 local companies - Express in Leeds and Folding-Sliding Doors in Bradford and are going to hopefully look at other places to compare quotes etc.

Is there anything I should be looking out for or any questions that I should be asking as to be honest so far they all look pretty similar. One of the companies had rollers at top and bottom which made sense to me to lessen the load on one set but apart from that I have no idea.

We are wanting a completely level threshhold from inside to outside patio.

Also as we are about to embark on the huge expense of an extension (which will be used as a garden room mainly but with dining table , settee etc) has anyone got any tips on questions to ask prospective builders when they come to give a quote as I read on here a lot of poor people who encounter problems and are then advised of what they should have done.

Planning has been approved.

Many thanks for any advice

The Folding-Sliding Door guys in bradford do manufacture their own system. But you can also buy it from others. check out http://www.foldnslide.net/ which is the hardware side of their business.

We used a company in Tamworth who manufacture doors based on the fold n slide system. I found the door to be very good and impressive. But the service from our fitter was a bit crap.
The interesting thing was that quote was substantially lower for the same door set from the supplier in Tamworth compared with the Bradford company who actually manufacture the system.

One thing to bear in mind is that you generally pay for the number of panes rather then the total size. As its down to the number of hinges etc. As we had a 4.4m opening we needed a system which could do up to 1.1m per pane so we only needed 4 panes. A lot of the "cheaper" systems only do up to 1m per pane so you would need an extra pane for the same size opening, which then increases the cost.
So you could choose a more expensive system but have the cost similar to a lower spec system due to not needing as many panes.

I hope that makes sense.

chappers

Sounds like you already know what to look at, you can generally tell a quality product just by the way it operates and feels.
Don't discount fitting most doors correctly fitted will be OK and a decent fitter can take the cheapest doors and get them operating nice and smoothly whereas a 5h1t fitter can ruin the best doors.
Having a fully working large scale showroom like that is good as it will give you a real feel for both the quality of the doors and the level of fit, their fitters can achieve.
If price is your deciding factor than concentrate on getting a good recommended fitter

andrewf75

I think its probably an advantage to get the manufacturer to fit them rather than your builder as if and when you get problems with them they will come back and fix them for free under guarantee.
We had UPVC ones fitted 3 years ago and they are pretty awful so you are definitely right to go for aluminium. I've had to stick draught excluders round them to cover the gaps that have developed and they stick regularly and need adjustment. Maybe they were just fitted badly I don't know.

melb

thanks for your replies - very helpful and informative