A quality patio or sliding door from SparWindows creates an excellent first impression of your home. We offer a wide range of modern and stylish doors available at affordable prices.
Patio door is an umbrella term. In the UK it covers three ways of opening a wall onto a garden: sliding, French and bifold. We make the first two, in timber, alu-clad timber and uPVC, all to measure.
Which one suits you comes down to three things: how much of the opening you want clear, how much swing space you have, and whether you need a level threshold. The table below settles it in about a minute.
Start with the opening, not the door. A three metre gap and a one metre gap lead to completely different answers.
It is a sliding door where the handle does two jobs. Turn it, and the whole leaf lifts a few millimetres off its seals before it moves. Let it down, and the weight of the door presses the seals shut again.
That is the difference between a lift and slide door and an ordinary slider. An ordinary slider rides on its rollers all the time, so the seals have to be loose enough to let it move. A lift and slide sits down hard when closed and only floats when you are actually opening it.
In practice it means two things. A large leaf moves easily, because it is momentarily off its seals rather than dragging along them. And the closed door seals better than a slider of the same size, because nothing has to stay loose.
Ours are made in pine or alu-clad pine. That is a different class of door from a hinged garden door, and the price reflects a different mechanism rather than a bigger version of the same thing.
No. We make sliding, French and tilt and turn patio doors, and we would rather tell you now than after you have measured up.
If a bifold is what you are set on, the reason is usually the clear opening: a bifold folds back and leaves most of the gap open. The closest thing we make is a set of French doors, which clears the full opening on a moderate width, or a lift and slide door if the opening is wider than French doors will sensibly span.
Worth knowing before you decide: a bifold has more moving parts, more hinges and more seals than either, and every one of them is a thing to maintain on a door that faces the weather. That is a trade for the wide opening, not a free win.
Our patio doors come with a low fibreglass threshold as standard. It is the detail people notice every single day and never think about when ordering.
A high threshold is a step, and a step at a door you use in both directions with a tray in your hands is the thing that gets tripped over. A low threshold sits closer to flush with the floor inside and the paving outside.
Two things to plan for while the opening is still a hole in the wall. Get the paving level right relative to the threshold, because you cannot adjust it afterwards. And make sure water runs away from the door rather than towards it, especially on a sliding door, where the rail will collect anything that reaches it.
Patio, balcony and French doors are supplied as standard with a single interior handle. A handle on both sides is available on some models.
For locking you choose between a thumbturn on the inside and a cylinder on the inside.
A friction stay is available on the patio door. It holds the leaf open at 90 degrees rather than letting the wind take it, which is the practical difference between a door you leave open on a summer evening and one you have to prop.
Every door is made to measure, so there is no list price. Yours is calculated from the size you enter, the type, the material, the glazing and the fittings, and the configurator prices it as you build, including VAT.
What moves the price most is the type, not the options. A single hinged garden door and a lift and slide door are not two sizes of the same product: they are different mechanisms, different frames and different glass, and the gap between them is wider than any option you can add to either.
After that, material is the next biggest step, and glazing after that.
In the UK, patio door is an umbrella term for a glazed external door onto a garden or terrace. It normally covers three types: sliding, French and bifold. The word is used both for the group and for individual types, which is why it pays to check what a supplier means by it.
A sliding door moves sideways on a rail and needs no swing space, but roughly half the opening stays glazed. French doors are hinged, so they need room to swing either inside or out, and in return they clear the full width of the opening. Wide opening and tight patio points to sliding. Moderate opening and a traditional house points to French.
A sliding door where turning the handle lifts the leaf off its seals before it moves, then sets it back down when closed. Large panels move easily because they are momentarily clear of the seals, and the closed door seals tighter than a conventional slider, because the seals do not have to stay loose enough to slide against.
Different rather than more. A sliding door needs its rail kept clear, since grit in the track is what makes a slider stiff over time, and the drainage at the rail needs to stay clear too. Hinged doors have hinges and a lock to keep adjusted instead. On timber, both need the same repainting schedule, and alu-clad versions of both need only washing.
We supply, we do not fit, and installation guides are on the site. A single garden door or a set of French doors is within reach of a competent joiner. A lift and slide door is a different proposition: the glazed leaf is heavy, and lifting it into a track safely is usually a job for more than one person and sometimes for mechanical lifting. Plan that before delivery day rather than on it.
