Appearance, practicality, and performance should be front of mind when choosing the right door system to suit your individual project.

The opening and the view
When looking at different types of doors, it’s worth noting that folding doors open up about 90% of the total frame size or aperture, whereas sliding patio doors by comparison typically open 50-65%. When the doors are closed, however, sliding doors offer the most uninterrupted views as they consist of fewer, wider door leaves with bigger panes of glass. Folding doors have more door leaves, each with a frame around them, so there will be more visible lines.

Sliding patio doors are available in a multitude of configurations that offer a lot of design freedom.  Our ingenious open-corner solution for example features two perpendicular doors that slide open away from a corner that has no fixed post.  This feature results in a cantilevered ceiling that appears to float, and truly removes barriers between internal and external spaces.  A pocket solution allows you to slide the opening vent into a wall cavity, making the sliding panes invisible when the door is opened.

Design options
Adaptability due to the many configurations is a key advantage of sliding doors, but folding doors offer the luxury of being able to fold back the whole wall, helping to create that seamless transition between home and garden.
Folding doors offer a choice between different configurations: either fold all the leaves back against a single wall, or split the leaves, so they stack on both sides. You can also choose whether the leaves open inwards or outwards. The advantage of the doors opening outwards is that if the doors are wet after rain, they can be opened without the rainwater dripping onto the carpet or wooden floor.
Of course a sliding door needs no such considerations as they open and close along the track; though you can select which doors slide and which are fixed.

Practicality
There are a number of folding door designs to choose from, including several that incorporate a traffic door. Typically, found when there is an odd number of door leaves, traffic doors are single leaves that operate like a ‘normal’ back door and can be opened by themselves for ease of use when popping in or outside. If you want to open the door for ventilation, sliding patio doors offer the most flexible options as you can open the door only as far as necessary to make the room comfortable, as opposed to opening an entire door leaf at a time.