Exterior Sliding Glass Doors

Installing and Maintaining Exterior Sliding Glass Doors - A Primer

If you are someone who is not a big fan of traditional doors which offer no view to the outside world, you should go for exterior sliding glass doors for your home. They are stylish, they improve the appearance of your home, and they make your rooms look large and spacious.

I remember reading an article in which the writer had mentioned that exterior sliding glass doors are an important architectural feature which symbolizes Western living. If you think about it, it is not an overstatement at all. For many decades, sliding glass doors, or sliders as they are also called, have been an integral part of several homes across the country.



You have plenty of choices when it comes to sliding glass doors. Aluminum framed sliding doors are still the most popular choice since they are easy to maintain, cheap, and do not rust quickly. However, wood and fiberglass frames are becoming increasingly popular these days. If you want to have a crystal clear view of the outside world, you can opt for plain, transparent glass panels. If not, you can go for stained or frosted glass which is not as transparent as plain glass.

There are a couple of things you can do to make your exterior sliding glass doors energy efficient and reduce your energy bills. One - You can get double paned glass with low energy coating which reduces heat transfer to a great extent. Two - You can go for insulated glass doors that contain argon gas between the panes. If the temperature is very high, the glass could get faded due to extreme heat. To avoid this, you can choose solar gray tinted glass which can withstand harsh weather conditions.

There are three important things you should remember about exterior sliding glass doors.

1. They should be maintained very carefully. Even if a small part of a glass panel is broken, the entire door needs to be replaced.

2. They can get dirty very quickly. Particularly, if you have transparent glass doors, the fingerprints and stains will be clearly visible which might make your doors look really bad. So, you should clean them regularly.

3. They are not nearly as strong as traditional wood doors or metal doors. So, it is always advisable to opt for reinforced glass, secondary blocking devices, and secure locking mechanisms.

Installing sliding glass doors should be done very carefully. So, it is a good idea to leave it to the professionals. Replacing them is not hard and you can do it easily if you have all the tools and a little bit of experience in this kind of work.

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