Supporting bifolding doors

[GarethH]

I want to build a conservatory and I'd like to have a bifolding door across the whole wall at one end. One of the side walls - the kitchen wall - already exists. I'm building a new one parallel to it. The door is to go between these two walls flush with the end of the kitchen. The doors will be approx. 2.5m - 3m wide and 2.4m high. The roof is a PVC & polycarbonate lean-to.

From reading up about these doors and speaking to the manufacturers, some kind of steel lintel is needed to take the weight of the roof and door.

One of my problems is how to support this lintel from the existing kitchen wall. I'd rather not build out the wall just to support the lintel.

I found this system online http://www.nichollsandcooke.com/bi-fold-door-support-system.php which looks ideal but the company hasn't returned my calls.

How should I do this - can anyone recommend a system that's suitable?

Cheers
Gareth

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[^woody^]

Your detail between the doors and roof is too high. Have you just guessed it or is there a purpose for that?

Anyway, the plastic roof has very little load so you can fix something like a standard 102x51 steel channel across the top and if you cant bear this off the kitchen wall then fix it to the face with a bracket

 

[GarethH]

Thanks for your reply.

The distance between the doors and roof is big because I want to keep the whole of the new roof above the level of the existing kitchen roof and the doors are already tall (2.4m).

I'm more concerned about supporting the weight of the door than the roof (which as your rightly say won't be heavy). Many of the bifolding doors are hung from the top so the support above takes all the weight. Any significant deflection and they won't open. Some do take the weight at the bottom but they have a higher threshold which I'd rather avoid.

Also, according to the manufacturer I spoke with, they all need fairly strong support at the top because when the doors are open all of the heavy glass panes hang off to one side so there is a torque which pulls the top support out horizontally.

If steel channel and brackets will cope with this then that would be ideal. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[RonnyRaygun]

I built one very similar and got my doors and roof from www.tradeconservatories2u.co.uk.
They use the Ultraframe system and the eaves beam is supplied as part of the kit making the whole installation a lot simpler.

 

[^woody^]

My understanding that with folding doors, the loads are still taken mainly by the hinges, and although some load is taken by the top track, this track is mainly for guiding the doors and keeping them aligned.

Bottom tracks will always be preferable as then there are no problems with the top beam, or flexing or roof movement etc. You can get bottom tracks which are flush in the floor with no threshold

 

[GarethH]

Thanks for the help guys!