It is personal choice - and it comes down to what a customer is looking to achieve from their project. The comment above about only getting properly used in summer is complete valid, as too is the overall size of the doors, where they are located on the house, what the view is like out of the property...indeed there is so much to consider we wrote and entire blog on the subject.

There is no right or wrong answer - and as suppliers and installers of award winning versions of both bifold AND sliding door systems we have no bias towards one or the other. Our teams install nationally, from Shetland to the Channel Islands...and everywhere in between. When we get asked this question by customers there are a number of initial things we would ask to try and make some recommendations - and we have written a blog all about these. Probably the most valuable question is realistically how often are you likely to have the doors fully open. Our SF55 aluminium bifold doors can be manufactured up to 1.1m wide and have an industry leading narrow sightline of 115mm (the amount of frame visible when closed) and over a 29' 6" run of 9x1m panels you will have 8 intermediate frames totalling 920mm of aluminium. We do two aluminium sliding door systems the Grand Slider (83mm sightlines) or our award winning theEDGE (narrow 24mm sightline) - both can take glass sizes of up to 3m wide so over a 9m run of 3x3m panels you will have 166mm of intermediate aluminium visible with the Grand Slider and just 48mm visible with theEDGE. So if your doors are closed more often than open there is significantly less frame than glass in sliding doors - maximising your views - however the trade off is that unless you opt for a pocket slider you are not able to open a sliding door completely to create a total 9m opening like you are with bifold doors - you would only open 6m of the 7m (or 6.75m if you went for four sliding door panels). In terms of thermal performance both SF55 and the sliding door systems can be double or triple glazed and achieve pretty similar U-Values and in terms of price the SF55 and Grand Slider systems work out to be almost identical - although theEDGE is a bit more because of the advanced engineering required to create such a narrow profile. There is also the option of the SF75 bifold door which has a U-Value of 0.9W/m2K which is the lowest of any aluminium system on the market. Given your location and your views, my personal recommendation would be sliding doors, because you maximise your views even when closed - but it is whatever is best for you and it may well be a combination of sliding doors and fixed frames provide the perfect and cost effective solution. If you have any questions do not hesitate to ask and good luck with your project!

Excellent. Thanks for the visual. Always helps as builders are only at the foundation stage at the moment! 28m3 of concrete pumped on the site last week as our house built on higher ground so extension has to match ground level and we're adding a first level extension too. A long way to go but take each day at a time. No more projects for you then?!

We got ours from Apple Blinds which is local to where we are in the North West. They are battery powered so didn’t need to be wired in. They operate by remote control which is attached to the wall with a discrete bracket and looks a bit like a smart home monitor I think. They need charging only once every few months. They charge by plugging in to charger for a few hours. The blinds when open are also very discrete but you should check whether they can be attached around your window frames. I agree with others that open glass is nice but I think for security purposes it is a good idea to have something for when you are away or over night etc