Home / Shutters / Bi-fold & sliding
For openings, not just windowsBi-fold and sliding shutters in Cessnock
Stacker doors and wide alfresco openings are the best thing about a new build and the hardest thing to furnish. Curtains crowd them, fixed panels waste them. Shutter panels that fold back flat or slide past each other keep the opening's whole point: it opens.
Two ways to move a wall of louvres
Bi-fold panels hinge to each other and concertina to the side, stacking almost flat against the reveal. When the day is good you get effectively the whole opening back. When the western sun or a cold night arrives, you walk the wall closed in one motion.
Sliding (bypass) panels hang from a top track and glide past one another. Nothing swings into the room, which suits openings with furniture close by, walk-through robes, and serveries. You trade a fully-clear opening for zero swing space.
January and October through the same opening
The alfresco wall is usually the biggest single sheet of glass in the house, and out here it often faces west or north-west for the afternoon light. Lovely in October. In January, on a valley floor that runs high 20s and dries out through summer, it is a radiator. A wall of louvres in front of it works like a huge adjustable eave: blades tilted up against the low sun in summer, wide open for the low winter sun you actually want, folded away entirely when the weather is the good kind.
- Hidden tilt as standard on these panels, keeping the big spans clean
- 89 or 114 mm blades, sized to the panel at the measure
- Track and set-out planned in your opening, not off a plan drawing, because floor levels, reveals and door hardware all get a vote
A good opening should stay an opening. The shutter just gives it a January setting.
Questions we hear about bi-fold and sliding panels
Bi-fold or sliding, which one?
If you want the opening completely clear and have the side room for the stack, bi-fold. If swing space is tight or the panels will move every day, sliding. It is a set-out question more than a taste question, and it is quick to answer standing in the opening at the free measure.
Do they work on ordinary sliding doors, not just big stackers?
Yes. A standard two-panel slider gets the same treatment at a smaller scale, and it is one of the most common jobs we quote in newer homes.
Indoors only?
These are interior panels. For an exposed verandah or an outdoor room that cops weather directly, the conversation moves to exterior-grade aluminium, which we cover honestly on the shutters page.
Which way does yours face?
Tell us the rooms that struggle, and when they struggle. We'll come out, stand in each one at the window, measure properly, and quote the shutters that suit the light your house actually gets. The measure and the quote cost nothing.