Sliding glass doors, switching locaiton of sliding panels?

Hi Guys

We have a 3 section sliding door in our house, where the central section slides from right to left. We also have a security screen for this door.

The issue is, the way the door opens, takes up a lot of room in the dining area, because you need to allow room to clear the doorway.

We have had quotes for new single and double stacking doors to open from the extreme left to right, to move the entrance away from the dining area - cost $2500-3000!

We were just looking at this again, is there any way we can move the glass panels and flip the doors over to make them open the right way? Or is it just too hard? What extra bits would we need, where would we get them from, and could we do it ourselves? Is it too rude to ask the door companies? I've asked them before about suppling matching new locks for our other sliding door, and they weren't interested.

Here is a pic of the door as it is now (please excuse the mess!) The idea is to get the opening to where the little kids table/chair is now. Floors are going to be replaced.

You can flip the door to open the other way, how ever you cannot create a stacker door from your current set up.

to flip the door you would need to remove all three sashes and unscrew the lock and jamb styles and flip them over so that are hung on the opposite side of the glass, you may need extra locking jambs as you may find that the lock is not centred, depending on you door height.

I would probably ring the window manufacturer and have their service team to a rehanging on site for you. will save a lot of mucking around and that chance of a broken door.

Thanks striking!
Any ideas on how find out the door manufacurer? I can't see any stickers on any of the doors or windows.
Thanks!

sometimes the name is on the window catch Do you know which company built your house

Hi,

So, could we then also swap the 2 panels on a typical stock-standard aluminium sliding window after we finish the build?

(We can't do it now, although it's the last chance, because we'd need to go to council again, and the builder would charge us $1k just for admin fee alone (plus new window I'm sure, labour costs and builder's margin - which would end up being very costly; not to mention potential delays).

Thanks

Hi
Whether you can reverse panels on any door depends on the design of the door. You need to ask the manufacturer.

Ed

OK, I finally found the sticker on the othe sliding door. It is Boral Window which is now Dowell.
http://www.dowell.com.au/docs/Product/Doors/doors_wa_sliding.asp?AUD=&nodes=&site=dowell
http://www.dowell.com.au/docs/Product/D ... ite=dowell
Our door looks like the SD3610 SFF.
I want to change it to the 'Reverse R/Hand Panel option.
Just waiting on a call back from Dowell to see what they say, but from the description it looks promising!!
"Reversal of sliding panel configuration on all 2 and 3 panel sliding combinations possible after installation"

Hubby is sure he can do it, just waiting on my go ahead!

We did it!!

took about 3 hours, the glass panels were rotated, so the bottom became the top. Simple enough to swap the fittings around an screw in the fixed pannel.
The security sliding door was reversed, so the inside became the outside, we needed to remove some of the extra pieces, move them around and then rivet back into place. This meant the handle stayed up high instead ove bein lower than the glass handle.

It was easy as the door was designed for this, eg the bits all poped out, and the door handle is exactly half way.

We are so happy! we have just saved $3000 +

Yeey, congrats!!!! And all by yourselves ?!!??
Well done!

Yes, we did it ourselves!
Never got a call back from Dowell, but we figured we'd just go for it, and if we got stuck just put it back how it was.
Hubby got to buy a new tool which he loves (rivet gun), and just started doing it this afternoon, he did most of it, I helped moving the doors, and keeping our two year old off them, and cleaning as we went.
The only tools we needed was the drill (although DH busted some drill bits), screwdriver and the rivet gun. We will get some touchup paint to paint the rivets, and touch up some scratches.
I'm really happy as there was nothing really wrong with the door, just opened in a bad spot, and we got the security screens done about 4 years ago and they were not cheap, so I'm glad to not have to replace anything.

Lex, if your window frames look the same both sides, I think it should be very easy to change your window after your house is finished. It seems like they make these things to be easily swapped over.

Wow!! I didn't even realise you could do that so a big congrats!!

Definitely looks much better that way

OK, thanks, Leni! That is quite some encouragement!!
In an attack of "brilliancy", I figured which way our bathroom window should open . The window is on the side of the house, but still, one can see into it from the street waaay easier than if it was opening the other way around
So I was already devising some fancy (possibly non-existent) one-off sliding glass partition (instead of blinds), which I would install internally within the frame to cover the window panel which slides ...
I will contact our window mfr as well ...

its good to know something like this can be done. you never know when this can come in handy.
but as for touching up the rivets with paint, if you haven't got alot of rivets i recommend that you get the same colour rivets they came in most colour bond colours and just replacing them. the paint will scratch off and sooner or later it wont look good. but i suppose it a personal choice.

OK, update on our bathroom window.
The manufacturer said it can be done (for a small fee of $180, FYI ).

I guess it's probably chaper than what my state of the art gliding glass panel would have cost, even if someone was actually willing to make it.

Anyone else swapped aluminium sliding window panels??

It can be done.
The ones I have done required little hack-saw to cut off a piece of the sliding sash.

The top and bottom of the sliding sash at the interlock is punched differently.
You need to hack a bit out of the bottom so that it matches the top.
Then you can flip it.