How do i change the rollers on a very heavy patiodoor.do you pull it toward outside orinside??>???
- posted
13 years ago
How do i change the rollers on a very heavy patiodoor.do you pull it toward outside orinside??>???
Open the door a few inches in order to grab both sides of the sliding piece, lift it off the track and pull the bottom of the door toward you. In most cases this will be on the inside.
It may not be the rollers. Often it is the track itself, being worn down, pitted, and otherwise worn out. Snap-on, stainless, replacement tracks are available for ten bucks or so.
Either way he needs to take the door out. If the track is bad then the rollers are bad too.
I got several more years out of mine by tightening the screws that are in each end of the door. Tightening one lowers the wheel further, so it rolls on the wheel insteal of scuffing the door itself against the channel. Maybe in my case they had barely lowered the wheels enough at installation, and they wore down faster than they would have if they'd been tightened more in the first place.
Later I did remove the doors** and though I knew they were heavy, they were much heavier than that. Two layers of glass, each thicker than an average window I think, and I barely got them off and lying down without dropping them. I may have leaned one and if it started to move after setting it, I wouldn't have been able to stop it.
So I'd urge you to have a competent helper.
I don't remember if I retracted the rollers before trying to remove the doors. It might have meant having to lift the doors less, although maybe you can only force them lower, but when you lift the door the rollers hang as low as they can go whether the screw is retracted or not.
**, can't remember why (although it might have to do with putting a burglar alarm switch in the channel. It's set so the door can be open 4 inches and the alarm set, but if the door is opened more than that the alarm goes off. This meant using roller switches, drilling into the basement, and in one case snaking the wire through the ceiling of the basement family room.
And of course I oiled the rollers, and I may lower them some more since after several years the doors have gotten harder to move again.
I just fixed my sliding patio door. It started "dragging" when nearly closed. Tried adjusting the roller on that side. Didn't help so I removed the door. Cleaned years of pet dander that had collected under the door (and in the rollers) . Cleaned the tracks and put new rollers on both sides of the door. It almost slams now if I'm not careful closing the door.
OP has advise on lifting the door panel out of the track. Remember this is tempered glass and is heavier.
Bob wrote in news:ic2dec$5ei$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal- september.org:
Had a sliding door in a kitchen once. Floor was so built up after 30+ yrs it could not clear when pulled. Wasn't much wiggle room in the track either.
Door stayed stiff to what accessable cleaning would allow.
First find the adjustment screw that will raise the rollers and give clearance to lift the door past the bottom channel. ww
What???????
1/4" tempered glass doesn't weigh anymore than 1/4" plate glass.As a matter of fact, it was plate glass before it was hung in an oven for the tempering process.
Most times the operating panel is on the inside track (newer Anderson are an exception, they put it on the outside so wind pressure compresses the seals). Depending on manufacturer, you may just lift the door up a little and then pull the bottom in off the track. On many newer doors (Jeld-wen is one), you may have to remove the stop, which is a strip of wood or vinyl at the top that holds the door in. If you have to remove the stop, it will be held on with screws. Just remove the screws and then the stop, then tilt the top of the door in a bit and lift it out of the track. Be careful when you remove the stop as the door will be free to fall on you! Have a helper hold it while you remove the stop. As others have said, the doors are very heavy.
Oh, you will have to partially open the door first, both to get a grip, and also on most doors to disengage the seal between the two doors.
HTH,
Paul F.
That is not necessarily true.
float glass, not plate. they haven't made plate glass for a long time (since the 1970's iirc)
Technically you are correct, but most glaziers still refer to it as plate glass. After over 20 yrs in the glass business I don't recall any of the glaziers I worked with call it float. Actually, we hardly used either term.
"Ron, I need a piece of 1/4" size x size"
But the bottom line is, it doesn't weigh more after it's been tempered.
Define newer- the ones on this place are backwards like that, too, and at least 20 years old. Means you have to open the screen (which is on the inside) to close the door, not a minor consideration in bug season. plus the track gets full of leaf debris easier, with no screen door protecting it. Nor can you lock the door with a broomstick. It also confused my heating contractor- he put the new floor register in front of the wrong panel.
Gotta give the manufacturer credit, though- the doors still shut pretty tight, in spite of abuse and zero upkeep. I really need to field-strip and lube them, and soak the wood threshold in linseed or something.
But when I hit lotto and build my dream house, it'll be full-light french doors. No slider shuts as tight as a 3-bolt hinged door.
Correct but not to replace them once the door is out is very foolish. New rollers only cost a pittance compared to the labor involved in pulling door and changing them later.
Harry K
Sounds like they may have been installed backwards. I rented a house way bck when where that had been done.
Harry K
Warning: When adjusting the rollers, take the weight of the door off of them first! I learned that the hard way. Two sets of rollers later I knew to do it. There just isn't a whole lot of meat holding them in the clamp, once they slip they are ruined. This was on an Anderson door built back in the early 80s.
Harry K
I'm looking at this large picture frame window we were putting in new construction. RO is prepped, ready, set go, heave the window in using glass cups. I holding it so partner could get inside and put a cup on it and do his things. Well I called him back up, so we could flip the window. Mistake we had the drip holes on top.
Lesson learned
Have look. Can you shift the panels from front to back? Doing so, will the operator panel travel another direction?
I've accidentally placed the wrong panel door on the wrong part of the track. That was obvious,....
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