Maintenance And Repairs For Getting A Slider Door’s ‘Slide’ Back

For many homeowners, the bane of their existence lies in slider doors that work fine for years and then suddenly decide that they only want to open when they’ve left you huffing and puffing. Whilst it may seem like a random occurrence, your sliders could stop working properly for a number of reasons, including warping of the frame and thermal expansion. By completing some regular maintenance and repairing damage as soon as you notice it, you can ensure that your slider doors retain their ‘slide’ for many years to come.

Maintenance
Once a year, it is important that you brush out the tracks of your slider doors to remove any dust and other debris. You can then apply a cleaning solvent to the inside of the tracks, followed by a silicone lubricant. At the same time as this, you should give the rollers and locking hardware a spray of lubricant.

Repairs
There are a few issues that could be causing your slider doors to be stubborn that you can fix yourself, providing that you have the right tools and replacement parts. These problems could involve:
• Worn roller wheels caused when they run over the debris that has accumulated in the track. You will need to replace the rollers.
• The wall in which the door has been installed has settled, which affects the door’s alignment. You could try elevating or dropping the offending rollers until the door slides smoothly.
• The space between the doorframe and the doorjamb may no longer be uniform the whole way up. You can try shimming between the jamb and the building to get this space plumb.

One of the biggest problems to befall slider doors involves the entry of water through or around the doors. Most often, this is due to deficient or deteriorating seals between the frame and the building itself. You are most likely to encounter this problem if you live in wet areas, such as by the ocean or in high-rise apartments (where the weather is allowed to batter the building). To prevent this problem, you should:
• Install flashing to the wall sheathing. Cover the sides, top and bottom of the slider door with wide strips of plastic flashing material.
• Have ‘weep holes’ drilled into the base of the wall, as this allows any water that is forced into the door to run down the barrier and escape outside.

As you can see, it doesn’t take much to maintain your slider doors – if you simply brush out the tracks once a year, you can go a long way towards ensuring that your doors are as long lasting as possible. If your slider doors are already experiencing problems or manage to develop them anyway, it may only take a quick repair to get their ‘slide’ back or to prevent the entry of water into your home.