Sliding doors are practical entryways for your homes, especially in areas with high traffic. You can even choose them in various styles to blend with the theme or decor of your home. After installation, you have to maintain them to ensure proper functionality for years to come.
But before enlightening you with the ways to keep your sliding doors functional, let’s discuss why people install them in the first place. Here are the quick benefits of installing sliding doors into your property:
- Energy-Efficiency
By configuration, sliding doors are designed to retain indoor air. Thus, double-glazed sliding glass doors minimise the heat loss from your room. Besides, you may invest in the doors with argon gas in-between the glass sheets to act as a better insulator. In summers, this will keep the cold air inside your home and the heat outside. The glass can even be covered or coated to improve its energy-efficiency further and minimise the effect of destructive UV rays of the sun. It will also reduce condensation and frost build-up on the glass and simultaneously you will even have better acoustic insulation.
- Indoor/Outdoor Traffic Flow
The more significant lift and slide doors will ensure smooth traffic flow to indoors and outdoors of your house. It implies convenient access to people during social affairs. These doors also provide convenient access to moving more significant furniture items into and out of your home.
They can be twice as comprehensive as ordinary doors or significantly more extensive. For enormous openings, two, three or even four board panels can be installed. Such a wide sliding door also brings in more daylight and offers incredible outside views.
- Safety
One significant advantage of the sliding doors is that they prevent anybody from being hit by a swinging door. They stay where you leave them until somebody chooses to move them.
By their tendency, lift and slide doors are highly secure. When bolted from within, there is no easy technique to open them from outside. Various multi-locking systems can be considered for these sliding doors for added security and safety of your family.
- Space-saving
The sliding doors have a compact design that implies that they are perfect for saving space. For, sliding doors avoid the issue associated with standard entrance doors – the problem of taking up extra space when swinging inward or outward from a room.
How to keep sliding doors functional?
Now that you’re aware of the benefits of installing sliding doors in your house let’s find out how to keep them functional.
1. Test existing lock: Many sliding doors are integrated with a lock on one side for holding the door to its frame. Make sure that the integrated lock functions appropriately and fix or repair the lock whenever needed. An expert door installer ensures that the frame stays secure, so you could ultimately depend on your sliding door lock.
2. Attach slide locking bar: After a complicated process of installing automatically programmed doors, you must get a peaceful night’s sleep by locking up all your entrances. You can take security a level higher at your property by installing a slide locking bar to your door. It is usually a metal bar or wood dowel to fit on the base of the door track. When installed, it prevents your door from opening even if the lock is removed or damaged.
3. Maintain the rollers and door tracks: The sliding doors depend on the rollers for moving, and if these are damaged, the doors won’t work correctly. So, get rid of any dirt or debris along the tracks and make some size adjustments if required. For a smoother functioning of the door, you can even compress or expand the rollers. The records must be in top condition so that it doesn’t turn out to be an easy passage for intruders to lift the door off the tracks and enter your house.
4. Lubricate the door tracks: For smooth functioning of sliding doors, you must apply oil on both lower and upper trails of the sliding doors. You can even grease the doors’ lock using vaporised oil so that you can easily flush out grime. You can also coat moving parts inside it. You would even need to disassemble your door lock for lubricating it properly. If you’re not sure about it, you may also consult a professional door installer to handle it with care.
It is suggested to hire a professional for any sliding door repair or replacement. Experts are experienced and trained, as well as they know very well how to keep your sliding door in the best serviceable condition.
