Do-it-yourself sliding doors: installation, installation, manufacturing

In an effort to make the house more comfortable and cozy, the idea often comes up to replace ordinary swing doors with sliding ones (they are also called retractable, sliding, hanging). The good news is that you can install sliding doors with your own hands without any problems. The bad news is that a normal mechanism costs about the same as a quality canvas. Bribes in them is the moment that in the open state they almost do not “eat up” space. They either hide in the wall (the best, but more difficult option to implement), or move along it. 

All this is true, but there is a significant disadvantage – a very low degree of sound insulation, especially in the variant of the compartment door. When the canvas just covers the opening. When installed in a pencil case (into a wall), the situation is slightly better, but the degree of sound insulation of a hinged door cannot be achieved even with this installation method. If all this does not scare you, you can study the systems, choose, and then install.

Sliding door systems

There are two types of mechanisms: suspended and rail. Both are not ideal. Briefly about their advantages and disadvantages – below.

Suspension system on top rail

The suspension mechanism is a carrier beam, to which a guide is attached in the form of the letter “P” with “legs” bent inward. The rollers to which the door leaf is attached move along this guide. In technical terms, this is a hanging door on the top rail.

When installing such a door, the floor under the door remains smooth, only the lower roller is installed on the right and / or left in the doorway. It slides along the groove made in the bottom end of the canvas. It is necessary so that when moving it does not deviate vertically. This design is the easiest to install. Installation is very simple and consists of several steps:

• fix the top rail;
• screw the roller mechanism to the upper end of the blade,
• roll the canvas into the guide;
• install stoppers at the top (so that the doors do not fall out);
• having opened the doors, insert the lower roller into the groove, fix it on the floor.
  

That’s all. Roller doors installed. But this system, in this form, as in the photo, has very low noise isolation characteristics. They are practically zero: the passage is simply blocked.

Rail sliding doors

This type of door has two rails: top and bottom. The rollers are also installed at the top and bottom. Thanks to this design, the system has a high degree of rigidity: it can be shaken, and this will not cause much damage.

Minus the rails in the floor is known: the complexity of cleaning. Debris and dust constantly gets into the grooves, you have to monitor their cleanliness. This type of door is most often used in wardrobes, wardrobes. They are installed as interior doors if mobile children grow up in the family. Then safety is more important than the difficulties with cleaning.

Mounting options

Regardless of the sliding door system, installation methods can be:

• Sliding doors. Guides are fixed on the wall along which the canvas rolls.
  

  

• Cassette. A special niche is made in the wall in which the door leaf is hidden. They are also sometimes called! Retractable.
  

  

• Cascading. They consist of one fixed canvas and several movable ones. Movable, if necessary, move and hide behind a fixed part.
  

  

The easiest installation option is compartment doors. They can be installed independently, and not only at the stage of repair, but also after it. It is only important that the opening is even, and the wall has a normal bearing capacity. The disadvantage of such a system is that you can’t put anything close to the wall in the place where the door rolls back. There is one more thing: very low sound insulation. It’s easy to explain: if you look from the end, there is a gap of several millimeters on the sides. It is necessary so that the canvas does not “shuffle” along the wall. And all sounds perfectly penetrate through it, becoming only a little quieter.

Cassette doors are good because in the open state the leaf is in the niche of the wall and does not interfere. The second plus is that seals can be installed around the perimeter of the opening, which give much higher sound insulation performance. The disadvantage of installing a sliding door in a niche is that it can only be done at the repair stage. The second drawback: to make a pencil case for sliding doors, they usually put a false wall, and this is stolen centimeters of area.

Cascading – one of the varieties of compartment doors. It just has more guides: according to the number of movable door panels. Installation is perhaps the most difficult: a lot of details and high accuracy of installation is required. The systems are classified as elite, and they rarely save on installation: repairs will cost more.

Features and installation procedure

You can install sliding doors with your own hands even without much experience. It is quite possible to do without installers. It will take a little time, and also – installation instructions. We will try to give a detailed description of the process with photo and video materials.

Self-installation of sliding interior sliding doors

The systems may differ slightly, but the general rules remain the same. There are several requirements that must be met prior to installation:

• The opening must be even, otherwise you will have to take a canvas that covers all deviations with a margin.
• The bearing capacity of the sides of the doorway should be high, as well as the wall above it.
• The opening should already be finished: plastered and painted, wallpapered or decorated with decorative panels.

Next, let’s start assembling. You can attach videos first. Different manufacturers have their own recommendations. Some recommend retreating from the edge 1/6 of the width of the door leaf, in other systems they are attached immediately from the edge, and the mounting plates provide the indent. We install such a system: in it, roller platforms are installed immediately from the corner.

We center them, measuring so that the distances are the same. Having exposed the plate, with a pencil or marker we outline the places for the fasteners. We drill holes in the marked places. The diameter of the drill is 1 mm smaller than the diameter of the self-tapping screw.

We expose the plates, screw in the screws. The length of the fastener depends on the weight of the canvas, but not less than 70 mm. We twist them exactly perpendicularly, otherwise unnecessary stresses will arise.

Supports for rollers are inserted into the installed plates. They are fixed with a cover on the side surface. Next, roller platforms are screwed onto the threaded pins.

It is also convenient to install handles and locks before hanging. They need special, mortise. If you bought a ready-made kit, the required holes are available. If you have adapted an ordinary canvas, you will have to trace the outline with a pencil, and remove the excess with a chisel. After the handle or lock enters the recess, the attachment points are marked, holes are drilled under them and fittings are installed.

Next, you can proceed to the installation of the guide. With mounted rollers, this will be easier: you know exactly at what height the bottom edge of the rail should be.

The most convenient way is to hang sliding doors on a dry wooden beam. Its cross section is less than 50 * 70 mm, its length is twice the width of the door leaf + 5 cm. We cut off the guide of the same length.

Having placed the guide along the bar, it is attached to the bar with self-tapping screws at least 8 cm long. The number of fasteners – at least three – departing 10 cm from the edges and in the middle (more often, less often – no).

Now you can measure at what height to mount the beam. A guide with a bar is “rolled” on the door with installed rollers. So you can accurately note how high the doors turned out. We drill at least four holes in the side face of the beam for fastening to the wall.

7-10 mm are added to the mark obtained – the doors should hang, and not shuffle on the floor. 7 mm is the minimum gap that is sufficient if there are no floor coverings in the opening. If they are supposed (later lay laminate, carpet, linoleum, etc.), then the thickness of these coatings must also be taken into account.

So that the canvas does not “walk” during installation, it is jammed with small wooden wedges. You need at least two stops – near both rollers.

Having attached the beam to the wall and correcting its position with the help of a level, we mark its position with a pencil. If the wall allows, you can fasten it to the wall through, but take self-tapping screws with a length of at least 120 mm for this, or better, put it on anchor bolts.

If the wall, for example, is concrete, the installation of dowels is required. To do this, you need to transfer the marks under the fasteners to the wall. This can be done using a thin and long drill, the diameter of which is smaller than the drilled hole.

An even simpler option: a long thin nail. It is inserted into the hole and a mark is made on the wall with a couple of blows. Further, the procedure is known: we drill holes for the plugs of the dowels, insert the plugs, if necessary, hammering them. Then we install the doors.

Stoppers must be fixed along the edges of the guide. They are brought in from the sides, the required location is established empirically (so that the canvas covers the opening completely in the closed state, and rolls back sufficiently when opened. They are fixed with clamping screws.

Having opened the doors, we install a flag roller on the floor. It goes into a groove sawn at the bottom of the canvas. It is necessary so that the doors do not deviate vertically.

First, we insert it into the groove, mark the holes for fasteners, drill, then fix it with short self-tapping screws (length about 15-20 mm).

On this we can assume that the sliding doors have been installed. They are already fully functional. Remaining finishing work. The mounting bar with the guide is closed with a decorative trim matched to the tone of the door leaf. It can be nailed directly to the beam with finishing nails.

Only when you expose it, make sure that the wheels are closed. So much more beautiful)) Now – that’s it, you installed the sliding doors with your own hands.

See below for a video tutorial on installing such a door. There are several installation options.

We mount cassette-type sliding doors (in a case)

The process of mounting the guide, hanging the door leaf almost one to one repeats those described above. There is no need only for finishing, and all other steps are necessary. Instead of mounting a decorative strip, a false wall is mounted at a distance of at least 10 cm from the wall. Usually it is made of plasterboard profiles, which are sheathed with wall plasterboard. But this is not important – you can use GVL or plywood, any other suitable material.

Where does the distance of 10 cm come from? The thickness of the door leaf and the gaps on both sides are 5 cm. A minimum of 5 cm is added to them for installing the profile. So it turns out 10 cm.

Since the main load will fall on the wall, the profile frame can not be reinforced. If such a wall does not seem very reliable to you, you can insert wooden bars inside, which you can fasten with self-tapping screws. This will make the structure very rigid.

The basic principles for calculating the case for a sliding door, as well as the marking features, the principles of preparing a doorway for installation, see the video.

Homemade sliding doors

Any door leaf can be mounted on rollers and will work as a sliding door. The guide and all other components – rollers (carrier and flag), stoppers, stops – can be bought. Hang on them at least a piece of plywood or a door assembled from several boards. This is the easiest and cheapest option. But to make a mechanism on your own is already a more difficult task. One of the options for a sliding door mechanism made from improvised materials (from round pipes of different diameters) in the video. The system was supposed to be installed in a closet, but judging by designs, easy can withstand even an oak door from an array.