Despite the popularity of sliding doors and steel-look windows as current trends in glazing, there are still many benefits of bi-fold doors. By far, the best feature of bifold doors is how they can open up an entire wall and make your home connect better to your patio or garden. However, there are more reasons than this. Therefore, if you’re thinking about new patio doors for your home, here are many compelling benefits of bi-fold doors and why you should consider these over other types of patio doors.
Understanding the benefits of bi-fold doors over other types of doors
To understand the benefits of bi-fold doors starts with what type of home you have as folding sliding doors tend to work better in some house types than others. Another essential consideration when choosing a folding door type over a hinged or sliding is how many access doors to your garden you actually have. Many houses only have one, while others have more than one. Smaller two and three bedroom new build homes, typically only have one set of doors leading out to the garden.
Therefore, when it comes to thinking about a new patio door and whether there are any genuine benefits of bi-fold doors, your house and the number of garden doors you have is the right place to start.
When you have a smaller house, bifolds are best
There are many smaller houses, such as terraced properties where the idea is to add an extension at the back and increase the floor area. Here, a bifold is a perfect choice. Because bifolding doors fully open, it’s the only patio door type that truly makes a room feel larger.
Instantly your room connects to your patio area better than any of our sliding doors from our Reynaers range. Of course, a sliding door will give a different door experience, however on warmer days, there are no vertical mullions or static door panels you get with a sliding door to interrupt the flow of your room.
Therefore, nothing beats a bifold if you have a smaller house and want to make it feel larger, especially with open patio doors.
A bifold is better when you only have one garden access door.
Let’s say you currently live in a house with a set of French doors with side panels at the back and these are your only garden access doors. Again a bifold is probably the better solution here. As well as giving you the same benefits as a bifold in smaller houses, the traffic door functionality, only available with a bifold, makes your doors better than a slider and especially for day-to-day garden access.
Why the bifold traffic door is an excellent feature
When you move a sliding door, it involves sliding a door to your desired position. The traffic door functionality you get with a folding system is another of the benefits of bi-fold doors.
On a bifold door set with three or more panels, it is possible to have just one leaf operating as a regular hinged door. This traffic door enables enabling easy entry and exit without having to fold the panels back every time. Traffic doors are great for ventilation, taking out the washing, letting out a pet or when you need to open the door fast.
And unlike many sliding doors on the market that don’t have a keyhole to unlock the door, the traffic door locks from the outside and inside. Therefore you can use this traffic door and a bifold door to enter your property from the back of the house.
Matching single and French doors are more benefits of bi-fold doors
How important is matching your various garden doors? If your house has a large patio door suitable for a bifold, but you’ve also got a utility room, side door, or French doors elsewhere in your home, it is very hard to make these doors look the same. Sliding, bifolding, and regular aluminium French doors all use different styled profiles – you cannot get these doors to match.
More benefits of bi-fold doors include the capability to create single doors and double doors using exactly the same aluminium profiles and handles as your bifolds. So if your project comprises a set of bifolds and other single or double doors elsewhere in the property, you can get these to match.
Aluminium doors at larger sizes
As you shop around for a regular front door, side or back door, you’ll typically find many of these come at maximum widths of about 1 metre and a maximum height of around 2.2m. When you make your aluminium doors using bifold door profiles, you benefit from the extra width and height capability that’s engineered as standard into a bifold.
You can get bigger door sizes with our Reynaers CF68 bifold and the amazing Alunet BF73 product goes up to 3 metres high! Want wider and taller single and double doors? Make them from bifold door profiles and you don’t need the top or side glazed panels of other types of aluminium doors.
Even more benefits of bi-fold doors
Flush or low tracks, fixed or open corners, gable or fixed windows above, lots of colour choices. Just some of the benefits you get when you choose a bifolding door. By all means compare with the other types of doors on the market, but the benefits mentioned in this article you usually won’t find on a sliding door, or a hinged aluminium residential door.
At C&A Window Systems, we create refined and expertly crafted doors and windows for the home, including glazing for commercial buildings and a trade supply-only service. Contact us today to discuss your project with a member of our team. We look forward to helping you create a better property with our innovative, cutting-edge range of bifolding doors.
