Sliding Pocket Doors

When space is tight, one of the main solutions in the architectural industry is to maximize the remaining spaces. Thus, the creation of pocket doors.

Sliding pocket door or simply pocket door has been among the most favorite solutions during the Victorian Period. In the later periods, however, it was transformed and shelved among the most overlooked space-saving solutions for house plans. But in actuality, it saves a floor space amounting to an average of 10 square feet. Now, imagine how much space you could save by just hiding the doors!

As we have earlier mentioned, a pocket door is used as space-saver and for architectural effect. The former pertains to the lack of room to which a hinge door could swing and the latter is for its aesthetic value. In spite of these advantages though, sliding pocket doors went out of contemporary designs due to various changes in architectural taste. But due to the resurgence of interest to this type of door, many find them a practical alternative to ordinary doors more specifically for bathrooms, utility rooms, closets, and home offices. Also, newer and much more sophisticated developments are achieved in terms of hardware and technology.

Older sliding pocket doors have the common problems such as noise produced by the rollers while sliding and the door itself jumping on the tracks due to inefficient rollers. Today’s sliding pocket doors, however, are refined due to smoother rollers and tracks and hardware that are designed for unproblematic operations.

Also, there are much more choices as to construction materials. In fact, nearly all types of wood, glass, fiberglass and vinyl could be used so long as the system of the sliding pocket door could handle the weight and size demands of the material.

Like most doors, sliding pocket doors could be custom-built. Nonetheless, they are normally sold as pre-assembled units or as individual kits. The pre-assembled unit may be composed of all or several of the main components such as hanger track, jamb and the cage.

Sliding doors solve problems too. These could be used in a tight location in the house where a swinging door is impossible and where an out-swinging or inverted door is an awkward solution. Also, it could be used in places where hinge doors could be an obstruction. This is typical to laundry room, bathroom and closets. A pair of sliding doors could also be an elegant solution to create a divider between adjacent and relatively large rooms such as the living room and the family room. This way, the division between the rooms could be defined yet that same divider could be used to effectively extend the area of the rooms.

But sliding pocket doors have their drawbacks too.

Apart from the tendency to create noise after sometime, sliding pocket doors are also more time consuming as compared with hinge doors. Also, there are several locations and situations where they cannot be installed. For example, areas where plumbing, main electrical wirings and permanent equipments are found may not be good places to install pocket doors unless these could be relocated somewhere else. Additionally, pocket doors are not good structural supports since, in the first place, they are very weak structures. Therefore, cabinets could not be mounted or attached to these.

All types of doors have their advantages and drawbacks, one cannot expect to find a particular door that could suffice all needs. Now, making use of a sliding pocket door in the house could be a great way to save space but will they work perfectly for the space you are trying to save is the issue one must try to first equate.