Bifold door design ideas

For most customers who choose a bifold door system for their home, the configuration they choose will consist of a number of panels that open up to one end, and in doing so creating a much sought-after connection between house and garden.

At IDSystems, having been at the forefront of innovatively designed bifold doors for more than 20 years we have installed tens of thousands of projects just like this, however our SUNFLEX bifold doors can do so much more than ‘standard’ configurations.

A short history of bifold doors

External glazed bifold doors, bi-folding doors, concertina doors, folding sliding doors or just folding doors have all been around since the early 1980s. At the forefront of the initial design was a German company called SUNFLEX and today their doors are still renowned for their design, quality and performance.

When it comes to bifold doors IDSystems has only ever installed SUNFLEX systems, quite simply because we believe they are the most advanced products on the market and one of the best ways of demonstrating it is their versatility.

Types of bifold door designs

Heritage bifold doors

A hugely popular bifold door design, Art Deco inspired heritage bifold doors consist of aluminium frames with horizontal bars across the glass to combine the look of traditional steel doors with the ability to completely open up a space in a contemporary fashion.

The use of heritage bifold doors has proven incredibly popular for those renovating older properties because the door’s appearance is more in-keeping with the original style, but is also in demand for those wishing to add character to sleek and modern new-build projects.

Find out more about heritage bifolds.

Bifold windows

An underused design idea, bifold windows offer an alternative window design for those who would typically have chosen aluminium side-hung, top hung or even tilt & turn windows. The beauty of bifold windows, as with doors, is their ability to completely open up the window – to a far greater degree than is possible with most standard window configurations.

This feature makes bifold windows popular for kitchens, where the opening connects the kitchen to the patio (they can even be integrated alongside a full height set of bifold doors), or for bedroom windows, to make the most of a view.

Curved bifolds

Curved or faceted bifold doors are very much a niche system, but a great design idea for those projects that feature sweeping curves within their layout. The advanced engineering of our SUNFLEX bifold doors makes it one of the only systems on the market capable of creating curved sets of doors – ideal for both residential properties as well as commercial applications for bars, restaurants or tourist attractions.

Curved bifold doors can be designed in either concave (inward curving) or convex (outward curving) configurations, with doors opening from the centre or from one end.

Internal bifold doors

Internal glazed bifold doors are a great design idea for those seeking doors between an existing conservatory and the internal rooms of a house. The SUNFLEX range includes a system specifically designed for internal use – the SF45 – which comes without a thermal break between the internal and external frames, unlike other manufacturers systems which utilise an external bifold door for indoor purposes.

For larger homes, glazed bifold doors have also been used to divide the living space from indoor swimming pools or gyms and can be designed in the same exhaustive range of configurations as the rest of our bifold door range. For more information about bifold door configurations see our ‘how to order bifold doors’ blog.

Integrated with glass roof

For those wishing to replace an existing uPVC conservatory with something rather more substantial, or seeking to create a glass box style extension, our SUNFLEX bifold doors can be integrated with our glass roof system to create an aluminium structure that not only looks good, but is also designed to last.

From simple lean-to roofs with doors underneath to larger more complex roof designs with wider spans of bifold doors to create aluminium orangery, at IDSystems we are able to manufacture and install almost any conceivable solution – all customised to your exact requirements.