Do-it-yourself sliding door installation

Recommendation points

• History of sliding doors
• Types and equipment of sliding doors
• Interior sliding doors – characteristics
• Between which rooms it is advisable to install sliding doors
• How to install sliding doors – let’s move on to this question

In this Article: Sliding Doors – History; types and equipment of sliding doors; characteristics of sliding doors; in which rooms they should be installed and why; how to install sliding doors yourself.

Whatever the hinged doors are – cheap, with a simple pine frame, upholstered with plywood, or expensive, from an array of valuable species and rich carvings – they all engage in theft. They steal square meters of premises, force homeowners to reckon with them and do not forgive when they strive to slip past the door leaves that are wide open due to forgetfulness in the darkness of the night. There is only one way to combat such arbitrariness – by replacing standard swing doors with interior sliding doors.!

History of sliding doors

For most of us, sliding doors are firmly associated with Japan, subway trains and large supermarkets. Japanese sliding doors fusuma shoji became part of the architecture of the Land of the Rising Sun around 200 BC. In those days, the Japanese did not yet experience problems with living space and shoji doors were intended more for dividing the interior into rooms, because there were no actual corridors in Japanese houses and each house was a common room, separated only by partitions called fusuma shoji.

Traditional Japanese sliding partitions fusuma shoji

In Europe, sliding doors appeared long before the invention of the underground by Charles Pearson – they were widely used in Greece and the Roman Empire already in the first century, often to hide secret rooms.

If in Japan the door leaves of sliding doors were made of a wooden frame with paper stretched over them, and the Roman emperors and patricians preferred wooden doors, then in Asia the first compartment doors were made of bronze and stone, since wood was in acute shortage.

Thousands of years ago, the sashes of sliding doors moved in the same way as they do today – along guide rails carved in hard wood or stone.

Types and equipment of sliding doors

Saving the internal space of the premises is achieved due to the leaves of the sliding doors, the design of which is possible in two versions – parallel-sliding and sliding-folding, with fittings corresponding to each of the options. The variant of doors with parallel-sliding leaves has from one to several leaves, and if with a single-leaf compartment door, which is recessed when opening into a wall niche or extending along the wall, everything is clear, then multi-leaf doors are more complicated. As standard, such doors have an even number of leaves, usually no more than 4, into which the entire door area is divided. The side sashes are fixed and the two central sashes, when opened, go behind them, opening the doorway.

The leaves of sliding-folding doors are divided into several interconnected sections of the same width, they can be from 3 to 7. When opening, the sections are folded like bellows harmonics and recessed into a special niche in the wall, called a “pocket”, the width of which corresponds to the width of the door leaf sections.

Both types of multi-leaf sliding doors are designed to cover a larger opening than a regular doorway – they can be used to divide a room in half and in this they are similar to Japanese fusuma shoji.

Sliding doors are made of various materials, it can be solid wood, a glued combination of a wooden frame covered with fiberboard or chipboard, overlaid with veneer. Knowing the standard dimensions of door leaves will come in handy: 2.05 m height; from 0.6 to 1 m width; thickness from 0.04 m. Door leaves can be made entirely of tempered glass, but the most common combination of wood and glass. By the way, glass doors for such doors do not require a frame – only the upper rail and rollers, you should only take into account that tempered glass with a thickness of 8 mm and more has a significant weight, therefore, they require especially durable fittings.

Sliding door fittings include: an upper guide rail carriage, usually 2 m long; set of mounts; videos; door leaf travel stops; lower guide rail carriage; door leaves; a strip that decorates the upper carriage rail and hides the rollers; platbands and extensions; flaps open position clamps; locks and handles for door leaves. To reduce the noise during the movement of the sash, rollers covered with a layer of silicone, inside which silent bearings, are especially successful. Each leaf of the sliding door is equipped with at least two rollers, but if the leaf weight exceeds 75 kg, then it is required to install at least four rollers on each!

Interior sliding doors – characteristics

Positive characteristics:

• saving space in living quarters;
• easy opening of the doors, practically effortlessly;
• they will not smell under the influence of a gust of air, so they can be left ajar;
• such doors are easy to automate.

Negative characteristics:

• low heat and sound insulation does not allow the installation of such doors at the entrance to an apartment (house), as well as to bathrooms and toilets;
• special locks for such doors are more expensive than ordinary locks, and standard locks cannot be inserted into them.

It should be borne in mind that the wall along which the sliding door leaf is supposed to move should not contain switches and electrical outlets, and furniture and interior items cannot be placed along and on it. If the door leaf goes into a niche-pocket at the end of the wall, then the wall in this area also cannot be used to install switches, drive fasteners for pictures and wall lamps into it.

The niche under the door leaf inside the wall will accumulate dust in its cavity, which is extremely difficult to remove. In addition, it is possible for a sliding door to jam inside a niche-pocket, for example, due to skewed rollers – it will be convenient to make one side of such a niche removable.

Between which rooms it is advisable to install sliding doors

The best option is between two living rooms. In this case, a double-leaf door is best suited, the adjustment of the opening of the doors of which will allow you to control the total size of the two rooms, change their functions. For example, by fully opening a sliding door, you can get a single room of decent size, suitable for family celebrations..

A good solution would be a sliding door to the so-called “technical rooms” – dressing room or storage room. The result will be significant space savings, easier access to things and property stored inside, the ability to completely close the inner space of the pantry with open shelves.

As an entrance door to a room of households with disabilities. A fully open sash does not hide the approaches to the room, does not interfere with the passage of a wheelchair. It will be convenient here to equip the sliding door with an automatic drive controlled by a remote control or an infrared sensor..

Sliding doors are also convenient in non-specialized premises, part of the area of ​​which is allocated for other purposes, for example, for sports training in the bedroom or placing a desktop in the living room.

Installation of such doors between the living room and the kitchen will be convenient and inconvenient at the same time. On the one hand, a fully open sash of the sliding door will increase the living room area, visually making the kitchen part of it, on the other hand, the absence of a threshold will cause smells from the kitchen to penetrate into the living room, and noises in the kitchen will be clearly heard. The installation of a powerful exhaust system above the kitchen stove will help to partially solve this problem..

How to install sliding doors – let’s move on to this question

Creating a niche in the wall for a compartment door, installing a multi-leaf weighing more than 100 kg or a glass sliding door – it will be right to entrust all these works to professionals, because the trial and error method will cost you dearly. But self-installation of a sliding compartment door is quite possible..

First of all, the installation of a ready-made door kit differs significantly from the parts of the fittings purchased in parts – the first option will be selected by the manufacturer, and in the second case, you will have to select a complete set yourself, while trying to avoid mistakes.

Sliding door installation procedure:

1. It is necessary to attach the door leaf to the wall next to the doorway, which it is supposed to block. It is necessary to mark on the wall the upper level of the door by drawing a line on the wall with a pencil. Then install the door leaf in the doorway and mark the top level of the door leaf again – in case the floor plane is not even.
2. After making sure that the line marked on the upper edge of the door leaf is strictly horizontal, it is necessary to measure 70 mm upwards from it and mark it with a horizontal line. A guide rail will be installed at this point and along this line.
3. We attach to the marked line (70 mm above the upper edge of the door leaf) and fasten a wooden beam 50×50 mm to the wall using self-tapping screws, its length should be twice as large as the width of the doorway. The beam should be pressed as tightly as possible to the wall, regardless of its irregularities – use the required number of self-tapping screws for this. Be sure to make sure that its position is horizontal..
4. We attach the guide rail to the bottom end of the fixed wooden beam. Determine the position of the mounting hole first on one side of the guide, dividing the thickness of the door leaf in half and adding the required distance from the wall to the obtained value within 3-5 mm, loosely fasten with a self-tapping screw, then repeat the measurements and fastening to the self-tapping screw on the other side of the timber. Before fully fixing the guide rail to the bar, make sure that there is enough distance between the door leaf and the wall for it to move freely. Important: regardless of the degree of curvature of the wall and the curvature of the beam fixed on it, the guide rail must be strictly straight – no, even the slightest, bends! After measuring, fully secure the guide rail.
5. Now you need to assemble the carriages and test their movement. Screw the bolts into the roller carriages so that the ends protrude slightly from the carriage hole. Slide each carriage assembled into the guide rail, making sure it moves freely. No need to lubricate the inside of the guide rail.
6. Install travel stops along the edges of the guide rail, rubber bumpers inward.
7. Queue behind the groove in the lower end of the door leaf. Having retreated 15 mm from the edges of the door leaf and in its middle, you need to drill two holes on each side – diameter 7 mm, depth 20 mm. Between the holes, strictly in the middle of the sash, you need to cut a groove for the lower guide, which is made in the form of a knife or a flag – the groove depth is 18 mm, the width should be 2 mm more than the width of the lower guide. You can use a router, electric drill or parquet saw to cut the groove. At home, it is problematic to make a perfectly flat groove, therefore it will be more convenient to install two rails or a U-shaped profile as a lower guide.
8. Installation of fastening to carriages on the door leaf. They are attached at a 2 mm distance from the side ends of the sash, strictly in the middle of the door. Mounts are installed so that the semicircular cutouts on the brackets, designed for tightening the nuts to the carriages, are turned towards the wall;
9. It’s time to hang the door leaf, this will require two people. Place the door leaf against the guide rail, align the bolt of the right carriage with the cutout on the right bracket, slightly lifting the door leaf. The adjusting nut with washer must remain outside the bracket, the end of the bolt must be inserted into the mounting hole in it. Fasten the brackets to the carriage bolts without fully tightening the nuts.
10. While holding, move the lower part of the door leaf away from the wall, install the lower guide into the cutout in the lower end of the door leaf. Return the lower part of the door leaf to the horizontal position together with the blade of the guide knife inserted into it, move it to the “open” position of the leaf, note the position of the lower guide on the floor along its longest length. Now you need to adjust the gap between the door leaf and the wall (it should not exceed 5 mm) – together with the assistant, deflect the lower part of the door leaf until it reaches it, then mark the position of the knife on the floor. Unscrew the carriage nuts, remove the door leaf and fix the lower guide to the floor with two self-tapping screws. It will be convenient if the mounting holes in the guide-knife have an oval shape – it is easier to adjust its position in case of erroneous marking.
11. Aligning the groove in the bottom end of the door with the guide, repeat the door leaf hanging by inserting the carriage bolts into the holes of the brackets without tightening the nuts to the end. Adjust the clearance between the floor and the door leaf by tightening or loosening the adjustment bolts on the carriages. Having achieved a clearance in the range of 5 to 7 mm, fully secure the nuts with a wrench, with the other wrench keeping the adjustment bolts from turning. If the floor surface is uneven or the door opening is curved, adjust the door leaf – do not overdo it, otherwise the skew of the door leaf will be conspicuous.
12. Completion of work – installation of a decorative platband over the upper rail, the distance from its lower edge to the end of the door leaf should be from 5 to 10 mm. The platband is made folding so that you can easily get to the carriages if necessary. It should be painted to match the general color of the walls in the room, or pasted over with the same wallpaper.
13. The installation of the sliding door is almost complete, it remains to fix the handles and that’s it..

In the installation of sliding doors described above, the steps for installing the box are skipped – you can see how to install it in the installation of interior swing doors.