Return to our Door Repair Home Page I've seen the pull (or knob) on a bifold door set located in five different locations, but aesthetics aside there is only one ideal placement in my opinion. I have repaired at least a hundred broken bifolding doors over the years, and most of them were caused by poor door pull placement. (The second biggest cause of breakage, if you're interested, is the bottom of the doors rubbing on carpet.) I'm talking mechanics here, not the feng shui of door pulls! My wife, of course, has a different opinion on the "perfect" location, so I will give you a second option that some people prefer and that works almost as well. The "ideal" position is with the pulls located in the horizontal center of the leading door(s). This is a compromise between smooth opening and smooth closing, keeping friction at a minimum to avoid excessive pressure on the track guide pins (see picture above). If the pulls are in the wrong location, the unusual force on the guide pins can over time lead to door breakage at the somewhat fragile top corner of each door.
The second best position is to locate the pull or knob near to the hinge-edge of the leading door: In this position, opening the door is very easy, but closing may be a little more difficult on older, worn doors. However, replacing the hardware or even lubrication of the track can often solve problems with this door pull location. My wife didn't particularly like having the pulls in the center of the leading doors... hence this loving compromise. The design of a bifolding door set presents a conundrum. Certain door pull positions are ideal for opening the doors and certain positions are ideal for closing the door. But there is no position that is perfect for both. The two examples above are the best compromises. Below are some examples of very bad choices. If you are having problems with your bifolding doors not working easily (and you have made sure they are well-lubricated and none of the hardware is broken), consider changing the positions of the door pulls if any of the below scenarios are yours!!
Don't place the pull near the outside edge of the leading door (vertically under the guide pins): Very easy to close the door, but gives you no leverage to open the door, since it is too far from the hinge to allow the doors to fold Thus, you have to twist and pull on the knob to get the door to open, or even reach up to the top of the door at the hinge-side and pull it out a bit. Don't place the pull on the hinge edge of the following door: Makes opening the doors easy, but it is even more difficult to close them since there will be extra friction on the guide pins that can lead to breakage. Don't place the door pull in the center of the following door: Similar problems to placing the pull on the hinge-edge of the following door... only about a hundred times worse! I worked at a large condominium complex that had hundreds of doors with this pull location. Don't place the door pull on the pivot-side of the following door: Unthinkable!
Hope this helps you get the best use and life from your bifolds!! Return to our Door Repair Home Page Bi-fold pull placement-what is the best practice? Just had a bi-fold closet door installed. The contractor put the pulls in a normal door handle position . The doors were so hard to open, the handles fell out. He said he needed to put thru bolts on because he concluded that was the problem. The doors still don't open without a lot of "doing". Are the pulls just in the wrong position? Do you have the same question? Not sure what you mean by normal door handle position - the pulls should be at standard door handle height, but mounts in or right nexdt to the folding seam in the center of the bifold - so the "pull" itself is just at the hinge-edge, preferably on the panel the pivot pins are on.//bi-fol...Some people like mounting on the second panel (the one away from the pins) because your finger tips don't go into the hinge if you push it closed using the xxxx .
Answered 3 years agoWhat I should have said is handles are furthest from the pivot point. So when you try to pull straight on, the door remains in the flat/closed position not wanting to open. If you pull angling your hand so that it is opposite of where the door folds in on itself while pushing, you can force it open. The pulls are not near the center or middle of either panel. As I thought - in that location, the pull is acting to close rather than open the hinge because it is pulling the "free" panel so the hinge wants to close, not open. The point of pull needs to be AT LEAST half way to the hinge from the "free" edge to even start to exert an opening rather than closing pull, and should be close to the hinge to make it easy to open, but not so close you catch your fingers in the closing panels.I tried to find a picture of the classic bi-fold door pull but knobs seem to the be the "in" thing right now. Usually you use a much smaller xxxx (looks more like a drawer xxxx ) that has a through-bolt or screw that goes all the way through the door - called a Direct Pull Doorknob or Bifold/cabinet/wardrobe Pull (use that phrase at Amazon to see what they look like - same as used on cabinet and bureau doors and drawers), so it does not stick out so far when the door is open.
The traditional handle, which I cannot find correct terminology for (the pull we have) is a metal finger-hook pull-tab that mounts on the hinge-edge of the door, and sticks out a couple of inches from the door - looks similar to a sliding screen door handle, or can be a recessed pocket handle recessed in the door like a pocket door pull, except has a finger recess so you can put some pull outward on it./17-17-l...smaller one are preferred because that way you don't get hip-bumped so often going through them. Mounted on the "free-edge" door like shown in the image makes them a hip-bumper when you open the door; if you mount them at the hinge edge on the pivot-edge door you avoid that but if you push on the xxxx to close the door with the hand closest to that side you are much more likely to get a finger caught in the hinged panels closing. I can't find anything in the uniform building code about one placement over the other, but if the code covers it I would say putting it so finger pinches are less likely (like in the image) would be the preferred one from a code compliance standpoint, not that a home inspector would be likely to catch something like that anyway.