Sliding patio doors - Where to buy?

[bruce_miranda]

We are having an extension done and there are two patio doors that we specified.

1. 3600mm w x 2100mm h
2. 2000mm w x 2100mm h

What are my options and what sort of prices would people say is reasonable to supply and fit. I am based in Watford, Hertfordshire.

We DO NOT want bi-fold or French doors. We are only looking for 2 or 3 pane sliding doors, i.e. double or triple track.

I am told that UPVC is out because of the 3.6m wide door. Is that true?

So far we have had prices ranging from 12K-35K!! which is suddenly making my Everest-installed-me-being-ripped-off doors seem very cheap!

[bruce_miranda]

I should be contactable now.

I am actually looking for doors with thin sight lines. The wife never has the patio doors open but loves the look of the garden. We currently have French doors and they are such a slam hazard for the kids. So now looking to put in some good looking sliding patio doors with as much glass a possible. We see more plastic than glass with the Everest-rip-off ones we have at the moment

We have a window too that we want to put in.

The 3.6m wide is our main priority because this will be in the centre of the extension between dining room and garden.

The 2m wide one is to one side and the other side will have a 2m wide window over the sink.

Is it OK to mix products of different profiles or does that look cheap i.e. go for different doors and upvc windows? We want to go for the more recently popular anthracite rather than white, but don't know how the upvc and aluminium match up, or should we even care.

[bruce_miranda]

Don't need dual colour profiles. Just wanted to know how closely the Anthracite aluminium would match Anthracite upvc.
I'm not going to have aluminium, if UPVC can do the job. We were only forced to start looking at aluminium because of our requirement for the middle patio door, I.e. 3.6m wide, 2 panes, narrow sightlines.

[bruce_miranda]

What is the width of the sight lines on that monorail upvc doors?

[bruce_miranda]

Nigel, your quote provided me some hope that my 10k budget for glazing may be possible. Just a pity that I am too far for you to consider doing a fully installed job. I still have 4 roof lights to source, so will be in touch once I see your quote.

[bruce_miranda]

The roof lights don't need to be slim or fashionable. Just warm and functional. So even standard Velux domes would be fine unless people have other suggestions. Just need them to be nice and big, so a 1m x 1.5m is the minimum size.

[bruce_miranda]

While I wait for some more quotes to come in. Have people heard of Aliplast from Belgium, for the extruded aluminium, with sightline for the middle of 35mm. This compares directly with SMART Slide 2000.

I contacted KAT UK because they advertise large UPVC doors, but alas when it came down to it, they too admitted to a max of 3m wide only. So beware of some false marketing on their website.

Also bigbaddom never did get back to me with any quotes but another fellow PH member did. So things are looking better than at the end of last week.

Maybe I'll start another topic about roof lights because those should be easier to source off the shelf.

Edited by bruce_miranda on Wednesday 24th June 20:22

[bruce_miranda]

In the end I went with Solarfold. I contacted them via here. I got what I felt was a good deal. Are they good products, I don't know yet because the extension they have gone in is still being built.