Essential Tips for Choosing the Perfect Patio Door

The home is where your heart is, especially if you’ve recently taken out an enormous mortgage in the high-interest rate environment and have a hope to pay it off sometime in the next hundred years or so. In other words, you will likely be living in your pride and joy for some time, so you might as well invest a little extra and spruce the place up to match your personal sense of style and really instill a sense of pride in the place. One easy win is investing in a patio door that gives you easy access to the outdoors in the summer months while allowing you to enjoy the stormy winter weather hunkered down by the fireplace. But while this task might seem easy at first glance, it requires a little more forethought than one might initially imagine. This post will provide you with a breakdown of how to choose the perfect option for your house that looks great, ensures energy efficiency, and is safe enough to withstand break-in attempts.

Look For Suppliers That Offer Custom Creations

If your budget allows, going custom is the way forward. Make no mistake, you can find excellent generic options, but for a real sense of ownership, customizing the style and layout will pack a significant punch. As seen at the site of Renewal by Andersen’s patio doors, there are several base styles to select that will form the basis of your design. These include hinged options that operate like a standard door to the more familiar sliding doors that add a real je ne sais quoi to any setting and can dramatically boost the feeling of space, even in smaller homes. Once you have selected your chosen style, you will then proceed to choose from a plethora of options like colors, materials, glasses, and really anything you can imagine. Most patio door companies offer customization services where you can discuss your desired outcome with trained designers who will confirm or suggest alternatives based on the variable inputs you provide or that they have come around and measured themselves. By heading down the custom road, you will end up with a door that not merely perfectly matches your existing decor but that can help to add style, size, and personality to both indoor and outdoor spaces.

Measure Carefully For Accurate Fit

This tip is only really relevant if you’re going to purchase the door yourself and have a third-party contractor come in and install it. Nevertheless, regardless of your approach, it is always a good idea to double-check measurements when investing a pretty decent chunk of change into something so important. Your patio door will have many functions, including becoming a central focal point for the particular wall it has been placed into. If anything is off or looks wrong, you’ll seriously regret not putting in the time to get your measurements correct from the get-go. If you opt for a custom patio door as per the first paragraph, you will likely find that the company creating it either sends someone around to your place to get the numbers themselves or will put you in touch with a recommended contractor who will do the same. Even if this is the case, you should still measure up the location yourself so that you will have a general idea of how much space it takes up, and if it’s too much, you can alter your order per your new requirements.

Think About How It Might Impact Your Energy Efficiency

With inflation remaining stubbornly high and geopolitical tensions rising around the world, it really should come as no surprise that energy costs have increased in lockstep with global events. In fact, energy costs can be so immense that it can make many homeowners really consider their next moves. Although you might think that a patio door will leak too much precious heat or cold to the outside environment, the fact is that these doors are typically glazed using the latest in double-glazing technology that ensures any energy loss remains absolutely minimal and, in some cases, lower than other architectural elements in your home. Some patio door installers will also give you a glass option, and if you have the budget to spare, it can pay in the long run to select the highest-end glasses that retain the most energy while offering all of the advantages that double-glazing usually supplies.

Decide On The Opening Direction

A seemingly simple decision can have enormous consequences for the amount of space you ultimately end up with on your patio. It can be even more vital when you only have a small area to play with since you need to make use of every square inch. Therefore, you need to make a decision early in the process regarding the opening direction of the door itself. Some higher-end models may even have a double hinge, which renders this choice moot, but most will include more basic options. Fortunately, if you can’t decide, you can purchase models with doors that open fully or, even better, go for a French window that works via a sliding system. 

Check The Security Features

The threat of home invasions is seemingly on the rise, and what makes this issue even more alarming is that it also appears the threat is beginning to encroach on traditionally safe neighborhoods. To avoid falling prey to the nefarious actors that want to rob, pillage, and plunder, it’s vital to make sure your home adheres to the most fundamental security measures at a minimum. These include sophisticated alarm systems, impenetrable locks, and a healthy dose of common sense. When choosing a patio door, you should also pay heed to the security measures it features. Aside from the glass being resilient to smashes, they must have high-end locks that are pick-resistant and have locking latches on the entire inside section of the door. Having these latches run up the door as a whole makes it far more challenging for intruders to peel the door off, and it is more likely that they will simply move on due to the difficulty of entering your home.

A patio door is a great addition to any home, especially if you have a beautiful outdoor area you want to use. By following the tips in this post, you should end up with a door that fits your chosen style, is highly secure, and has impressive insulation properties that retain enough energy to help you avoid costly energy bills.