uPVC sliding patio doors

Insulation: uPVC against aluminium

The uPVC sliding door in the row above sits at Uf 1.10 W/m²K. That's the best insulation value we offer in a sliding door — better than the aluminium ones, which sit at 1.80 or higher. If you want an opening the width of the wall without giving anything up thermally, this is where you end up.

Frame depth, sightline and maximum sizes

What it costs is in the frame depth: 194 mm. That's two and a half to more than three times as deep as an aluminium sliding door — those are 59 or 77 mm — and the depth has to go somewhere. Under the door you need a floor build-up that takes it; in a new build you draw that in, in a renovation it's the real work. The sightline is 150 mm.

One profile, no choice

Sizes: up to 6,500 mm wide and 2,700 mm tall, with sliding panels up to 2,000 mm each. In uPVC there's currently one door here: the Gealan S 9000 lift-and-slide. If you want to choose on profile shape or on how far the door sits into the room, that choice is in aluminium — the same type with a much shallower frame depth.

What you need to measure

So on this page there's nothing to choose on profile: you decide here that it will be uPVC, and that fixes the profile. If there's already Gealan S 9000 elsewhere in your elevation, the profile shape carries through — that's the only argument that still carries weight here. Everything after that is the size and the layout, the glass and the colour, and that goes into the configurator.

Structural opening and frame depth

You're already two steps further than where the configurator starts. It first asks what the door is made of and then which profile, and that's exactly what you decide on this page. What it then asks of you is the size and the layout, the glass and the colour. For the size, measure the structural opening at three heights and three widths — an existing opening is rarely square, and the smallest figure is your size. And look separately at what can go under the door: with this material, 194 mm of floor build-up isn't a detail but the dimension that decides.

Threshold and hardware in the configurator

The opening you see is not the size you order. You order the outer frame size, and that's the structural opening less a fitting tolerance on every side, which depends on how the door is fixed and finished into the wall. On a sliding door that counts twice, because the 194 mm frame depth you read above comes on top of what the fixing itself takes up. So don't just measure the opening; ask what's left after the fitting tolerance — that's the size the door has to go into.

uPVC lift and slide doors

The threshold is the only one of the nine choices that really carries weight on a sliding door, and on uPVC there's something extra: a uPVC door needs more floor build-up than an aluminium one, so the space under the threshold is tighter. If you want it low, that's a question for your builder rather than a tick box in step 6. Beyond that, the handle and the cylinder are the choices that count. An insect screen for a sliding door exists, but it then slides along with it, and that's a different product from the screen we supply for a window — don't count on it here.

uPVC patio doors with two sliding panels

Every uPVC patio door we supply is a lift and slide door: the panel is lifted with the handle before it slides, then settles back onto its seal. That's how a heavy uPVC panel still seals tight.

uPVC windows and patio doors

If you want two sliding panels, choose the 4-pane layout: two panels slide from the middle towards each side, so the opening is widest in the centre.

A patio door always comes with its own frame, as one unit made to the overall size you give us. If there are uPVC windows or doors next to it, choose the same profile brand so the look carries on.