I have decided to add a raised deck on the back of my home.
The wall that the deck will be built off of is 3 layers of brick and has two windows that will be removed and the openings cut to except two sliding patio doors that will lead to the deck. The working opening for each door will be about 60"X80".
The contractor told me to buy the doors and advised that you do get what you pay for as far as quality.

I'm looking for suggestions as far as BRAND,GLASS,CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL.My wife likes the idea of built in shades but I have read reviews that say they are problematic and a pain if they ever need replacement for a broken window panel. Of course, I don't want to spend more than a quality door would cost, so a less expensive but still quality door would be great.

Thanks for your advice.

No expert here, but I've learned a couple of tips.
Whatever you buy, see if the glass itself has a lifetime warranty. In case of sealent failing the glass can "haze". Some manufacturers serialized their glass. Look at any hardware associated with whatever brand you settle on. Easily replaced or expensive proprietary (but cheaply made) stuff you can only get from the door mfgr? Will they cover paying your contractor for any extra trouble he has to go to if there's a problem?
I wouldn't do the built-in blinds either. Friend of mine went that route. He is not a happy camper.

I strongly recommend changing your plan from sliding glass door to french door.

Less maintenance, better longevity, and better security.

Do not go with aluminum frames. Condensation forms and freezes in the winter and you can not open them until you thaw them out. My parents have an Andersen slider that is nice, not cheap by any means, but nice.

I have vowed to never have a sliding door if I can help it. We installed French doors and have not had any trouble with them. Of course, you need to have room inside for the door swing.

It wont be cheap, but I highly recommend hurricane rated sliders. Much better security. And if you say.... No hurricanes where I live! Think tornado.
Safer around clumsy people, kids and pets too

If you're after wood, I've always been a big fan of Marvin Ultimate and E-Series by Andersen, their architectural grade line. Do NOT confuse the E-Series with the cheaper A-series, and especially not the cheap 400 and 200 series. Most Andersen products sell on name recognition, but the E-Series (formerly Eagle Window and Door out of Dubuque) are extremely robust, and well finished.

The E-Series and Marvin Ultimate have wood construction and interiors, and EXTRUDED heavy gauge aluminum cladding, not the cheap roll-form (thin sheet aluminum) wrapping that most aluminum clad doors have. You'll get more exterior color options, if that matters, with the E-series - 50 paint colors, plus some anodized options. There are also different wood species available to the interior.

For solid value and strength, with minimal options, and a clean "European" look, the All-Ultrex Integrity by Marvin is a nice option. The frame and sashes are made of pultruded fiberglass, and are very tough. You can also get the Integrity with a wood interior and fiberglass construction and exterior.

For vinyl, we deal mostly with Soft-Lite, which is usually an installed dealer exclusive, but you may be able to find a dealer who will sell you product only. The Soft-Lite Elements line is what we use, and the frames are insulation foam filled, and there are Kevlar and stainless steel reinforcement in most of their products; in my opinion, a needed feature in vinyl, which lacks the dimensional stability and structural integrity of other raw materials.

For glass, I wouldn't go any higher than double glazed Low-E/Argon with my money. I don't feel that triple glazed is worth the added expense, especially with the doubled risk factor of 2 seals that could fail on each IGU. You'll also realize diminishing returns on the investment in exotic insulating gases as well.

I would stay far away from blinds in the glass - failure city waiting to happen, especially in doors; they get opened and closed more frequently than windows, and the blind panels are obviously much bigger/heavier; both factors contributing to a much higher failure rate.

Your builder is correct, you get what you pay for. Hopefully, he's also a gifted installer. Most carpenters "know how to install doors". Much fewer know how to do so correctly, to a T. Most doors are make or break by the quality of the installation. I've been very impressed by the operation of a budget door that was properly installed. I've also been really bummed out by $5k-$10k doors that didn't operate well because some hack screwed them into the rough opening and walked away.

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
I strongly recommend changing your plan from sliding glass door to french door.

Less maintenance, better longevity, and better security.

I respectfully disagree, all things considered. Most major manufactures use high quality locks and rollers that never fail, and are cheap and easy to replace if they do. The 3 point locking system on most French doors is robust, but expensive and complicated to replace.

Adding a high quality track-mounted security footbolt makes sliders very secure.

The DP ratings in energy efficiency are generally higher in sliders also, which I assume is important to the OP, in the chilly Windy City.

quote:

Originally posted by Outnumbered:

quote:

Originally posted by tatortodd:
I strongly recommend changing your plan from sliding glass door to french door.

Less maintenance, better longevity, and better security.

I respectfully disagree, all things considered. Most major manufactures use high quality locks and rollers that never fail, and are cheap and easy to replace if they do. The 3 point locking system on most French doors is robust, but expensive and complicated to replace.

Adding a high quality track-mounted security footbolt makes sliders very secure.

The DP ratings in energy efficiency are generally higher in sliders also, which I assume is important to the OP, in the chilly Windy City.

I had a slider in Anchorage, Alaska, and another in Michigan so I think I know cold. I also had french doors in Calgary, Alberta, and since I had a detached garage it was my primary means of ingress and egress and it's a much better door style.

Sliders are a low-end door style put in by builders because they're cheap and offer great light/views. The so-called "fixed" part of the slider is a security vulnerability, but the sliding part of the slider is easy to secure.

The OP is spending the money to yank out windows, and I stand by my recommendation to spend a few dollars more and install french doors.

I see you've been happy with your French door or two, and dissatisfied with a couple sliders, and for that you have a strong opinion. Cool.

I've sold, installed, serviced, and directed crews to do the same - somewhere in the low thousands of every manner of residential and light commercial steel, fiberglass, wood, and vinyl doors - sliders, hinged French, French panel sliders, Florida bi-parts, etc. ad nauseum. I used to run a custom millwork shop and have built countless doors, by hand, from scratch. I have given fenestration industry educational presentations to builders, architects, and engineers, and spoken at industry trade shows. It's not just me that likes to think I know what I'm talking about.

Hopefully we're still cool, Todd. I enjoy your posts and who you seem to be, even though we clearly see each other as flat out wrong on this matter. Obviously, this issue is not of great consequence anyways. At the end of the day, both styles are perfectly acceptable when a quality product is selected, and installed correctly.

We saw some model homes with Western Window Systems sliding doors. Nice hardware, seemed well made and slid nice. Unfortunately our builder didn't offer or want to bother pricing them out for us.

I was looking at hurricane rated doors by Anderson, Pella and Marvin. My logic, if it will withstand a hurricane, it obviously is better than a standard door of any type. Also, our midwest home gets hammered with high winds and driving rain from the west multiple times a year. My only problem is my wife is cheap and while I was away, she went out and bought one based on a local vendor's recommendation. Grrrr!

My experience installing and servicing doors mirrors Outnumbered's. I would recommend sliding glass over a french door as well. Having been tasked with repairing old doors installed by others, the sliders are typically easier, unless they were installed by a moron. Outnumbered is correct about the locking mechanism, and it also tends to weaken that wood door a bit and give it more of an opportunity to warp over time further complicating maintenance or repair.

At this point, having installed and dealt with a variety of brands, I would not recommend a wood or clad wood door made by anyone. I don't care who. If you must have wood, then the AL clad units by Pella are alright. They are still made of wood, and so will last as long as the wood and be subject to its flaws.

If I was installing them in my own home, I would go foam filled vinyl, with Low-E double glazed glass. If you live in hurricane/tornado country by all means get a rated door. The top of the line doors I've installed were fiberglass, from a swedish or dutch company, those things were amazing, I don't think you need to go that far. Unless your home has a Zender, you don't need triple glazed.

Foam filled vinyl or fiberglass is what is going to outperform anything with wood in it. Clad or no.

A quality door is key, but the installation matters more. If it is thrown in, not leveled, trued, sealed and flashed correctly, then it's going to leak water or air and stop working no matter how amazing the brand.

Personally, I would choose look at Pella doors. They make a damn good product. As Arc said, wood frames are iffy at best.

I am also looking for new sliding doors. We have two Pella doors that started rotting after five years. They are junk. Maybe it is only this particular model that is bad as I have noticed in other houses with the same doors that they have the same problem.

quote:

Originally posted by Suppressed:
I am also looking for new sliding doors. We have two Pella doors that started rotting after five years. They are junk. Maybe it is only this particular model that is bad as I have noticed in other houses with the same doors that they have the same problem.

I live in Avery dry area of Arizona. I would not worry about installing a wood frame door. I also grew up in a construction household, so general maintenance is just second nature.
That said if I lived anywhere that has a significant amount of rainfall and/or humidity, I wouldn’t even consider wood frames.

Pella makes a good product. I just sounds like the product you have isn’t quite the best medium for your environment.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:

quote:

Originally posted by Suppressed:
I am also looking for new sliding doors. We have two Pella doors that started rotting after five years. They are junk. Maybe it is only this particular model that is bad as I have noticed in other houses with the same doors that they have the same problem.

I live in Avery dry area of Arizona. I would not worry about installing a wood frame door. I also grew up in a construction household, so general maintenance is just second nature.
That said if I lived anywhere that has a significant amount of rainfall and/or humidity, I wouldn’t even consider wood frames.

Pella makes a good product. I just sounds like the product you have isn’t quite the best medium for your environment.

My post wasn't meant as a direct response to your recommendation because we were creating our posts at the same time. I am just slow at typing. I was just relaying my experience with these Pella doors which were supposed to be upper end in quality. I think I will go with arcwelder76's suggestion of using a foam filled vinyl or fiberglass door.

quote:

Originally posted by Suppressed:

My post wasn't meant as a direct response to your recommendation because we were creating our posts at the same time. I am just slow at typing. I was just relaying my experience with these Pella doors which were supposed to be upper end in quality. I think I will go with arcwelder76's suggestion of using a foam filled vinyl or fiberglass door.

No worries brother. I didn’t take any offense. Sorry if I came off dickish in my post. That wasn’t my intention.

quote:

Originally posted by Outnumbered:
I see you've been happy with your French door or two, and dissatisfied with a couple sliders, and for that you have a strong opinion. Cool.

I only listed the places colder than Chicago since you made a point of mentioning Chicago in your first post. I didn't mention the places warmer than Chicago (e.g. SoCal) so you're making a huge assumption here. I did intentionally mention Alaska since its long and severe winter coupled with being at least an order of magnitude more seismically active than California quickly brings out design, fabrication, and installation flaws. My job in Alaska took me into the Arctic Circle in the winter where there was lots of flight cancellations so I had many hours to talk with people including Inupiats who lived in the Arctic Circle and the doors on their homes had to survive 140F temperature swings from hottest day of summer to coldest day of winter (that doesn't include wind chill). Actually, Fairbanks has a larger temperature swing since they'll hit -50 to -60 in the winter and get over 90 a few days in the summer. Since I was so dissatisified with my sliding door in Anchorage, I did frequently ask people about their slider vs French door experiences (especially when they had unique lifestyle such as owning a home in the Arctic Circle), and French doors were vastly preferred over sliding doors.

quote:

Originally posted by Outnumbered:
I've sold, installed, serviced, and directed crews to do the same - somewhere in the low thousands of every manner of residential and light commercial steel, fiberglass, wood, and vinyl doors - sliders, hinged French, French panel sliders, Florida bi-parts, etc. ad nauseum. I used to run a custom millwork shop and have built countless doors, by hand, from scratch. I have given fenestration industry educational presentations to builders, architects, and engineers, and spoken at industry trade shows. It's not just me that likes to think I know what I'm talking about.

Interesting. I'm admittedly not in that business. I'm sure you'll agree that there is a vast difference in quality between high-end hand-built doors, the various grades of doors at big box stores (i.e. where the OP is likely shopping), and the doors that mass builders install in subdivisions (i.e. form LLCs, build hundreds of homes, install thousands of doors that cosmetically look good but short cuts were taken to hit price points, and bankrupt the LLC before any class action lawsuit from home buyers with warped, leaky doors).

It should be noted that I have a rather unique perspective on doors since I am in oil & gas and I've managed engineers, architects, and trades people for billions of dollars of work. Some of that work involves building office buildings and industrial buildings with doors designed to be opened hundreds of times per day, blast doors, fire rated doors, security doors to keep out environmental saboteurs, and even custom doors in the arctic circle designed to keep polar bear from mauling the technicians and operators inside. Seeing the more rugged doors designed, fabricated, and installed does help me see the shortcuts in residential doors for aesthetics and much lower price points. I do admit that I'm biased towards the french doors since they're more similar to the double doors we typically use when we need a wide opening.

quote:

Originally posted by Outnumbered:
Hopefully we're still cool, Todd. I enjoy your posts and who you seem to be, even though we clearly see each other as flat out wrong on this matter. Obviously, this issue is not of great consequence anyways. At the end of the day, both styles are perfectly acceptable when a quality product is selected, and installed correctly.

We're still cool. Also, I found your perspective interesting.

And I learned something too; I'm very surprised about what the people in the Arctic Circle preferred, and am always glad to learn more perspectives. Thank you Todd, and I'm sorry if/that I sounded like a tired ass yesterday!

Thanks for all the good advice.
Because of door opening limitations the slider is the best choice for my application.
The suggestion to NOT use wood makes sense. Because my installer wants me to purchase the doors I'm sort of forced into a big box store purchase.
I checked Menards, Lowes, and Home Depot,it seems about ALL the lines they sell are rated very poorly. I also had a problem finding a door that had no wood.
I think I found a slider that seems to get good reviews and is made with all vinyl with a foam type core. It is made by MASTERPIECE (MP) and is sold at Home Depot.
I will go and take a look.