Stiff bi-fold sliding shower door

Sep 17, 2009 Last reply: 6 years ago 11 Replies

Ageing mother is having trouble with the bi-fold door on her square shower cubicle. I seem to recall it runs on nylon slides or similar rather than wheels or rollers.



I am going over on Sunday. Any advice on lubricant or other ways to make it run a little more easily. Mother has no great strength in her arms and just a little less friction would help.



No idea of make or model. It is fairly new but mother would have gone for cheapness rather than quality.



TIA for any ideas. (No she won't pay for a nice offset quadrant with easy gliding doors like I fitted here earlier in the year!)


Clean all the congealed soap off, then rub some candle fat on the sliding bits.

Many thanks. By candle fat do you mean rub around with any old waxy candle?

Don't know how effective it will be in wet conditions but we had a similar problem with one of those draw string curtain tracks with plastic runners. Someone suggested cleaning them off and applying spray furniture polish on the running surfaces (Mr Sheen was chosen). That was a year ago and they are still running smoothly.

Silicon Spray from Screwfix (or Anne Summers!) I'm amazed you need to ask such a basic question in a newsgroup.

Roger's right, I had forgotten about that stuff. You can get an aerosol of it in Halfords. Also very useful for freeing up sticking electric windows in cars.

Yes - just rub it with a candle. I probably should have said 'wax' rather than 'fat'.

I've not tried it for this specific application - but it works quite well on many materials, particularly wooden drawer runners, etc.

PTFE spray

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Many thanks. Use ptfe tape, WD40 etc etc but never had this problem.

Better still I found an old can in the garage :-)

replying to Roger, Gary wrote: Excellent idea Roger, I've used this on our Aqata bi-fold shower screen door and seems to have done the trick. Thank you everso much. Best wishes and stay safe. Gary

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