french doors or sliding doors

[TxAnn]

We currently have French doors in our living room. We are having a problem with water seeping under the threshold. Dh is considering replacing the French doors with sliding doors. However we keep receiving contradictory information about which are more cost/energy effective- sliding doors or French doors. Does anyone care to share their experience or thoughts?

 

[clh2]

I would never want a sliding door. I think they are hard to open. And I'm not "sold" on their security. While I realize you can put the stick into the other track - then it is a pain each and every time the door needs to be opened. OUr dog goes in and out of our french doors. So our doors are used a lot.

As far as quality - regardless of your decision, get a good quality set of doors.

 

[ginnymack]

what she said!

 

[tileman]

We had a set if french doors that were in-swing doors to the outside in our new house.

They lasted about 5 yrs and the jamb & sill under the thershold rotted out.

Me & my wife replaced them with french doors that were fiberglass and they look & hold up great for over 8 yrs. http://www.jeld-wen.com/exteriordoors/fiberglass/

Hard to tell after painting them like the rest of the doors at our house.

Ron.

 

[jaminmd]

I'm so glad you asked this question because we need to replace our sliding glass door.

Originally we were going to get the Pella french slider with blinds between the glass but they are so expensive. When we bought our Pella replacement windows they had a 33% off sale it it was still over 5K just for the door, on sale, not including installation.

I also priced out their swinging french doors (one fixed, one swinging in) and I think that actually cost a bit more.

I hate my slider. It is the one the builder put in & it has been crap since the beginning.

I really hate having to make major purchases like this because you never know after spending all that money if the installers will do their job well. We had a wonderful installer that worked for Pella. I'll have to check to see if he does anything on the side.

 

[dex08]

My home has 2 sets of sliding glass doors and I hope to never buy another home with sliding doors ever. They are so terrible at leaking air!!! And you are so limited to how you can add weatherstripping to prevent air leaks!

 

[MarieLuvsWDW]

We have two sets of french doors that my husband wants to replace with sliding glass doors, that look like french doors. Pella makes them, and they're horribly expensive, so I've been dragging my feet.

As far as safety goes, I can't see how a sliding door would be any less safe than a french door. All it takes to break into a french door, is to break out enough panes of glass to crawl through, or to reach around to open up a lock. Both sets of my french doors also leak air. Like yours, mine have leaked. This is my third house with french doors, and it's always been an issue.

Newer sliding glass doors are made waaaay better than the older ones. You can also have dead-bolts installed at an extra cost.

 

[Kae]

I have an Anderson Slider that has a french door look & we love it.

Kae

 

[MarieLuvsWDW]

My home has 2 sets of sliding glass doors and I hope to never buy another home with sliding doors ever. They are so terrible at leaking air!!! And you are so limited to how you can add weatherstripping to prevent air leaks!

I can see how the space could be limited, but on the other hand, when you put weather-stripping around french doors, they become more difficult to close all the way. I am forever going behind people to close them all the way.

It's ironic, because it cut down on the draft when they're closed, but nobody ever closes them all the way properly now, so it totally defeats the purpose.

 

[akcire]

Our living room had one fixed and one swing in french door, when we brought the house. Our door needed to be replaced, it was crap. When we looked for options to replace the door, it was either a fixed/swing door or a sliding glass door (due to the room flow we could not have double moving french doors).

We purchased from Home Depot the top of the line Anderson door and had it installed by a local fireman/carpenter. Truly it was the best home repair money we have ever spent. The door looks great, we have no air loss, and for safety the installer put in a foot lock at the bottom (very easy to open) along with the deadbolt like lock on the door handle.

This may not be the answer for everyone, but we have been very pleased.

 

[jaminmd]

I have an Anderson Slider that has a french door look & we love it.

Kae

Did you buy through an Andersen dealer or Home Depot? I was just looking at these on the Andersen site.

 

[MarieLuvsWDW]

I have an Anderson Slider that has a french door look & we love it.

Kae

Are they double-paned? We need to find an alternative to Pella, because I can think of many more things to spend $6k on, than doors.

 

[dizneechic]

We build our house 4.5 years ago and had the builder ditch the crappy slider he was going to put in (we used the same builder before 12 years ago.. he uses Harvey doors which we didn't like as they got older) and we purchased a Pella Designer Series door and LOVE the thing. It slides so smoothly, and the doors are inverted meaning that they create a seal anytime the wind blows vs letting air seep through. The in between blinds are also really nice, they stay clean and the kids don't make a mess of them. We did have a small problem with our key lock on it after a year, and they came right out and fixed it for us, even though they didn't actually install the door. No complaints what so ever about the door (although I don't like the roll screen) and would highly recommend Pella sliders.

 

[dawson5]

We've had three houses, first had the builder's special slider. Nothing great, it led to a screened porch, we never felt a draft from it. We built a home with an Anderson swing in french door. It had three panes (?). This was by far the best we had. We did notice that it would leak air/draft but if we locked it, that eliminated the problem. Our lock sounds different from what others have posted. We had the deadbolt but if you pulled up on the handle, it locked another lock at the bottom. No drafts when it was locked. We now have a Pella sliding glass door. Three panes. We have had nothing but problems with it. It constantly hops off the track, doesn't slide smoothly and the lock on the floor always hangs up. It's winter now, we always get the corner with snow & ice from the way it doesn't seal correctly in the corner. I usually have to chip out the ice and snow to make sure it will lock correctly. I will say that all the windows we have here are Pella. I love them. In the old house we had Andersen, I could never understand why we paid that much for them (we built that house). They do not seem to be any better than these Pella's we have now.

 

[MarieLuvsWDW]

Those Pella doors do slide like butter, don't they? I think I stood there opening and closing them for five minutes.

 

[Kae]

Did you buy through an Andersen dealer or Home Depot? I was just looking at these on the Andersen site.

A dealer we buit our house in 93 & I still love my Anderson Doors & windows & I was a Pella girl. The windows & doors where already bought when we signed on the line.

Kae

 

[Swimalie]

We've had the french kind where one is fixed and one swings as well as a sliding door. For security, we will never go with a sliding door again. My husband is a former police officer and he hated the lack of locking you could do with the sliding door. With the french door, he reinforced the jam with a steel plate and extra long screws so the door would need some serious man power to be kicked in. This is in addition to the dead bolt lock and regular lock on the door. You can't do that with a sliding door.

 

[wdwfan16]

Go with the french doors. They are more secure, more energy efficient and nicer looking.

 

[luvmy3]

Its not really a fair comparison when you compare a builders grade slider with a french door or a Pella or Anderson slider, it will always be the cheapest poorest quality. I have a builders grade slider, which is junk, but when we replace it this spring it will be with another slider. I love the look of french doors but mine is in my dining room and I don't like the idea of having a door open into the room. I love that the slider is part of the wall, and takes up zero room when its opened, and mine is always being opened and closed. Just as there are in french door selection, there are many different levels of quality with slider, you get what you pay for.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We currently have French doors in our living room. We are having a problem with water seeping under the threshold. Dh is considering replacing the French doors with sliding doors. However we keep receiving contradictory information about which are more cost/energy effective- sliding doors or French doors. Does anyone care to share their experience or thoughts?

If you have water leaking under the door, you might need to find out what is causing that. It might not be the door at all, but the roof. We had French doors at our old house, but here we have sliders since they open out to the pool lanai. We had one set that was terrible to open and close. So we called the slider guy and he replaced the rollers, lubricated the door and it works like a charm. You can open or close it with one finger.