Kloeber / Jeld-wen bifold doors

[Ben Blaukopf]

Anyone got either of these, and anything to say about them - either wood or alu? Or any other suggestions....

[Andrew May]

Don't Kloeber have a showroom us Somersham way?

[Ben Blaukopf]

anything to say about them - either

You've been stalking cam.misc :)

Yup, but it's still 2hrs out of my life to get up there plus petrol, so if the response is "they're overpriced crap", then I probably won't bother....

[Andrew May]

anything to say about them - either

Stalking? No, I live there (cam.misc that is).

Don't get the impression that Kloeber is overpriced crap. I had a look at their aluminium bifold doors at the Grand Designs show and would certainly consider them especially as they were the cheapest (in the sort of give me an idea about price for this size sort of way) than the other exhibitors that I spoke to. Although that is not to say that there were not cheaper options. At least they had a published price list.

No connection with them in any way.

[David WE Roberts]

We are sourcing bifold doors at the moment.

We decided to go Aluminium because the profile is slimmer and we had heard bad things about some uPVC door warping out of alignment in the heat. More important with long runs - we are getting 4.7m doors.

Our proposed supply route: Local DG firm gets doors from Duration Windows (based in Canvey Island) and fits them so are responsible for coming back and adjusting if there are any problems. Duration Windows manufacture on Canvey Island but buy in the profiles. They will also come out and fit but we prefer a local outfit for any minor adjustments etc.

One interesting fact from the DG firm - they prefer to buy the frames from DW but source the glazing locally. Allegedly because DW have to load the supply price of the glazing to cover themselves for damage en route, so it is cheaper to source locally. This does make a king of sense - DW would have to order the glazing, tranship, then send it on with the frames. So more risk/expense than a direct supply from a glazing firm local to us.

If you are in the London area there is a showroom on Canvey Island and you can make an appointment to look over the BiFolds and try them out. We went, and found it very useful.

Cheers

Dave R

[David WE Roberts]

Oh, give some thought to the threshold. You can have an absolutely flat one but then the weather seal is not 100% because (on the ones we are looking at) brushes are used for the seal instead of a lip. We are going for the standard one which has about a 20mm lip with a rubber seal to make the doors weather tight. By adjusting the inside and outside heights you can get away with just about a 20mm step up/down which seems to work O.K.

Remeber that the area where the doors open and close will be swept by the doors as they move so will have to be kept clear.