Including sliding doors in your home can be a smart move because of their many design and functional advantages.
Cobus Lourens from Swartland offers the top 10 benefits of sliding doors.
1. Energy efficiency
Sliding doors can be efficient insulators, ensuring that your home stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Sliding doors that are fitted with composite gaskets offer optimal thermal insulation – effectively acting as a weather and sound barrier, and keep dust, drafts and rain out of the home.
2. Indoor/outdoor flow
Sliding doors make it easy to bring the outdoors inside by creating a seamless flow between your home’s outdoor and indoor spaces.
Since sliding doors have large glass panes, they offer all-year-round views of your garden landscape and panoramic views beyond.
3. Safety
In the past, sliding doors earned a reputation for being dangerous because they weren’t always installed using safety glass.
Today, however, this has all changed - homeowners can now get sliding doors with shatterproof safety glass.
4. Security
Security is an important consideration when investing in sliding doors.
Residential property owners should look for sliding doors with incorporated gaskets, aluminium seals and fixed leaves where these elements meet.
In addition to the seal, look for a hook-over locking mechanism which prevents the sliding leaf from being lifted out of its frame.
Secure sliding doors also offer engineered stiles for extra stability, which creates a bridge between your indoor sanctuary and the great outdoors.
5. Space saving
Sliding doors operate without a hinge – they simply glide along a track instead of swinging open. This means that no extra space is required for the door arc because they simply open up by one door sliding over another panel.
6. Natural light
Sliding doors have extra large panes of glass that run from the top to the bottom of each door panel. This design maximises any natural light, ensuring that you can enjoy floodlit interiors throughout the day.
7.Easy access
Sliding doors move easily on their rails – to open these doors, you need to gently push them aside and they will glide open. This offers easy access to the outdoor areas, which is especially useful during the hot summer months.
8. Environmentally friendly
Some sliding doors have eco-friendly traits. For example, homeowners can get sliding doors made from wood, which is renewable, durable and acts as a good insulator.
9. Great glazing
Sliding doors are a great asset to parents, they offer unrestricted views of your home’s outdoor areas, allowing parents to keep an eye on their children.
You can choose glazing for your sliding doors that offers various practical benefits such as reducing harmful UV rays by as much as 98 percent.
Energy efficient glazing can prevent energy loss, as well as provide better acoustic insulation, and reduce frost and condensation on the glass.
10. Style
Installing sliding doors adds an elegant aesthetic to any home. They provide a sleek and simple look that harmonises with most architectural styles, as well as being an incredibly functional and practical design that maximises natural light, outdoor views and offers easy functionality.