Last bump……

I do not want to have an odd leaf opening the opposite way to where the doors fold. I am now toying with having a four leaf door, all sliding to the right and just sliding the first 2 panels when I need to access without opening the lot.

Does anyone else have a set up like this? Is it workable? Is it possible?

The door is only used occasionally except for the summer when we would look to open right up anyway…..

On a separate note, can anyone recommend someone to supply some internal quality bifolds?

Don’t need to be double glazed or weathertight, but would like them on a rail top and bottom which most don’t seem to be.

I fit windows and doors and have fitted loads of bifolds steer clear of plastic at any size over about 2.5 mts you have to constantly adjust them in a hot summer,ally bifolds are better but furiously expensive and timber ones will require ongoing maintenance.Ive found that some french doors between glass side panels offer a big enough opening for this country and at about 1/3 the price.

We are currently going back and forth on ideas for our barn conversion.

10m span split into a 3.8m fronting the living room area, 3.8m fronting the dining room area and 2.4m for a back door. There will also be a 0.6 to 1m wrap around section on the living room corner.

Will be a green oak frame and initially I wanted the glass to be mounted into the oak frame with dried oak cover pieces and some sort of oak door in the narrow section and a bifold or french doors infront of the dining room but another idea was to use all aluminium frames windows and and have the green oak frame inside.

I am happy to just have french windows in front of the dining room as when they are both open they shield from wind entering but then a full opening does have a certain wow factor.

I know oak will need upkeeep and I would rather keep it looking brown by treating it that letting it silver and it just looks so much warmer than the grey aluminium.

another note – went to eco build last week and had a good look at metal framed windows. The lift and slide definitely feel more sturdy and seal better than bifolds.

Are we likely to get any remote chance of decent sealing with oak french doors? Assuming well dried and quite stable?

hi i fitted a full house of oak windows,these were treated in the factory with a micro porous clear coating from spain that looked great and was guaranteed for i think 5 years

We have a 6m opening and decided to go for bifolds with BristolBifold. We fitted them 4 years ago and never had any problems. The company recommended aluminium Easifold, more glass less frame, so we have 5 leafs (1.2m each) all opening the same way. The door itself is on the one side and can be used as a ‘proper door’.

The patio outside is at the same level as the kitchen with a slight fall away from the house. The builders were a bit skeptical and worried about water ingress and damp… so we did it anyway and installed acco drains along the length of the doors to ensure no water coming into the house. Again never had problems.

They’re amazing and everybody loves them… Go For it

Yep we fitted Origin Bi-folds, aluminium in Ral grey, very good quality doors and echo comments on making sure you get fitters who have done these before, also really think about what they open out onto, we decided to get a deck built at same time so there is a flow from going from inside to outside, heres some pictures to the job we did, not a massive opening but comes into it’s own in summer and makes a feature of the house especially as we have a west facing garden.

Pics of deck and bi-fold