How do you maintain bi-fold doors?

Bi-fold doors are an amazing addition to any home. They’re stylish, highly functional, and most importantly, they’re just as capable of keeping your family safe as any other door.

For all of their benefits, bi-fold doors need a bit more love and care on your end. You’d probably want your doors to last with you for a longer period of time which is why you need to take extra good care of it as well. If that’s what you’re setting out to do, then look no further. Here are some maintenance tips for your bi-fold door.

1. Cleaning The Tracks and Seals

This is the key difference between owning a regular door and owning bi-fold doors. Instead of hinges, bi-fold doors work with the help of tracks and seals. If these aren’t cleaned properly, your bi-fold door will have a hard time smoothly moving through the cracks when in use.

What’s important here is to make sure that your tracks are free from dust, dirt, or any hard debris. These could cause scratches in the tracks eventually which might make moving the door significantly harder.

First off, you’d want to inspect the tracks. Brush off any solid dirt and dust. Most importantly, look for small stones or other debris that are in the runners.

Other than brushing, you can use a vacuum to thoroughly take out all of the debris out for your door. You should do it at least once a month. However, if you’re beginning to hear creaks while you’re using the tracks – check it out ASAP and deal with the problem immediately.

You can apply grease on the tracks if you want to make it run smoother as well.

2. Cleaning The Door

How you clean your doors depends on the material that it is made of. Wooden doors need more care as they are porous, meaning liquid is going to seep into the wood if you wipe it with a wet cloth

A good way to clean a wooden door is to wipe it down with a dry cloth to remove any excess dust and dirt. You should then coat the material with wax at least once every six months. Doing this not only makes your wooden door look better, but it can also increase its lifespan as well.

Metal doors – most particularly, aluminium doors are a lot easier to care for. According to door experts from Aussie Aluminium, you can wipe down these doors with soapy water. You don’t need to worry about corrosion as aluminium doors aren’t susceptible to that.

You can sanitize the door completely by using multi-purpose surface cleaners as well. The same goes for the doorknob or the handle – wipe it down till it’s clean.

What you do need to mind though is to avoid using abrasive materials to wipe the door with. These could cause scratches on your aluminium door. Instead, go for a smooth cloth.

If your door is made of glass, avoid going to abrasive cleaning materials as well. Moreover, look for glass cleaners in hardware stores too. This will prevent streaks and cloudiness from happening to your glass door.

3. Maintaining The Locks

The locks are an integral part of any door which is why you should always make the effort to maintain these as well.

You can use lubricating oil to keep the locks operating smoothly. To do this, spray a little bit of the oil on the lock and then some on the key. Use the key as you would which will allow the oil to seep in further into the lock as well. Turn it a few times for extra measure as you’d want the oil to spread as much as possible.

Always check if your door locks are working properly. If they’re no longer functioning as they used to, it might be time for a replacement. What you’d want to avoid here is getting yourself either locked in or out of the house because of a faulty knob.

With proper use and care, locks can last for decades as well. Make sure to gently unlock your door at all times to prevent damages to the locking mechanism. Of course, don’t forget to add lubricating oil every once in a while too.

Call In Help

Should you have any problems regarding your door, you should contact door experts ASAP. Living in a house with a faulty door can lead to various problems. Having the problems fixed immediately means living in a more secure home and preventing even heavier problems from happening to your door.

Maintaining bi-fold doors might require extra work. However, with the tips above, you can help increase its lifespan by a huge margin as well. A well-maintained door is one that will protect you and your family for decades to come so don’t skip out on maintenance work every once in a while.

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