Kitchen bifold doors: styles and considerations

Bifold doors are an excellent addition to any kitchen. They can brighten rooms, offer expansive views and create a seamless link from a room to an outdoor area. In this guide, you will find information on the benefits of kitchen bifolds, the best types of bifold doors for certain kitchens and some of the considerations you face when purchasing.

Why install bifold doors in the kitchen?

Kitchen bifold doors offer many benefits for the kitchen, whether you are altering your current kitchen or building a new extension. These include:

More natural light

The more natural light you can get into a room, the better, especially in a kitchen where you may be intensely concentrating on delicate tasks. Bifolds can fill your kitchen with natural light, giving it a bright and airy appearance.

Great views

Kitchen bifolds can allow you to see your garden, decking, patio or beyond in all their beauty. Bifold doors have large panes of glass that can offer unobstructed views. If you have a particularly nice garden or view to show off, bifold doors work perfectly to showcase these features.

The feeling of space

Kitchen bifold doors can give smaller kitchens a much larger look. Removing a wall and replacing it with a bifold creates the feeling of space by bringing in more natural light and offering a view of the garden.

Blending the outdoor and indoor spaces

Bifold doors are incredibly useful in the summer when barbeques and garden parties become popular — opening fully to create a passage of uninterrupted space between the kitchen and the garden.

Kitchen bifold doors styles

In this section, you will find the best types of kitchen bifold doors for the most common situations, including the following:

• Best bifold to show off views
• Best bifold for large opening
• Best bifold for traditional style kitchens
• Best bifold for contemporary style kitchens

Best kitchen bifold for showcasing the garden

If you want an unobstructed view, you should look for a bifold that has thin sightlines. Sightlines are the frame section between the panes of glass. The thinner the sightlines, the better the view.

The Status aluminium range

Vufold offers the Status aluminium bifold range. The Status aluminium range offers:

• slimmer sightlines for a better view
• secure multi-point locking systems
• energy efficiency and weather testing
• 15-year guarantee

You can find out more by watching our informational video below.

Click here to view the full range of aluminium bifold doors

Best bifold for large openings

Larger openings require larger bifold doors. Poor-quality large bifold doors can be difficult to operate. Such doors are more likely to get stuck or become difficult to operate. When looking for larger-style doors, you should invest in high-quality bifolds. Higher-quality doors not only promise a smoother sliding door operation, they usually also offer wider door panels for a better aesthetic and uninterrupted views.

Supreme aluminium range

The supreme range of aluminium bifold doors offers the perfect combination of high-quality aesthetic and operation. This includes a specially designed bottom rolling system. This system is self-cleaning, meaning it provides an effortless opening and closing action without the risk of jamming.

Other benefits include:

• fingertip operation
• fast and easy installation
• energy efficiency
• multi-point locking system

You can find out more by watching our informational video below.

Aluminium Bi-fold Door Range - Vufold Supreme

Click here to view the full range

Best bifold door for traditional kitchens

If you have a traditional style kitchen, an aluminium bifold door may not fit the décor. Maybe you live in an older traditional home with strict building regulations that stop you from installing aluminium doors.

Timber bifold doors offer a high level of energy efficiency and security while also showcasing a rustic aesthetic. Timber bifold doors such as oak designs can be stained to the finish of choice, meaning you can personalise your door to suit any décor.

The Elite timber range

The Vufold Elite range is the perfect kitchen bifold door for traditional homes. These bifolds are available in finished or unfinished oak. The Elite range is affordable without compromising on quality, design or performance. Our Elite oak bifold doors are sturdily crafted yet have the slimmest sightlines of any oak bifold on the market.

Other benefits include:

• Thermal efficiency – with a U Value of 1.4 W/m2K
• 10-year guarantee
• Designs built for strength, durability and reliability
• Smooth operation
• Slim sightlines

You can find out more by watching our informational video below.

External Bifolding Door Range - Vufold Elite

Click here to view the full range of oak bifold doors

Best bifold door for contemporary style kitchens

Grey and other neutral colours are a popular colour scheme in contemporary kitchens. Grey is a relaxing colour that offers several shades which can be combined to create a monochromatic look. Grey can also hide stains/damage better than brighter-colour walls.

Matching your kitchen bifold door to other parts of your kitchen will create a stylish and unified theme.

The master range

The Master timber range offers the aesthetic of a timber bifold door along with a choice of a grey or white finish. The master combines affordability and quality for a bifold door that will suit any contemporary-style kitchen.

The Master timber range also offers:

• excellent Thermal efficiency
• easy installation – pre-machined, ready glazed, with drill bits and fixings included
• multi-point locking for added security
• slim sightlines for a better view
• 10-year guarantee

You can find out more by watching our informational video below.

External Folding Door Range - Vufold Master

Click here to view the full range of timber bifold doors

Considerations when buying a kitchen bifold

When purchasing a bifold door for the kitchen, you should consider the following factors to help you decide which type of bifold you to buy:

• energy efficiency
• sightlines
• ventilation
• security

Energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is important when choosing bifold doors. An energy-efficient door keeps your rooms cool in the summer and warm in the winter. This saves you money and keeps your kitchen properly insulated.

The best way to keep your room insulated is by choosing a bifold door system with a low U-value.

What is U-value?

The U-value measures how effectively a material insulates a room. This is obviously important as it will directly impact how much heat is lost from your home.

When checking the U-value of a certain material: the lower the U-value, the better the insulation of a material.

Bifold doors may have two U-values for each major component – the glass U-value and the frame U-value. Generally, the U-value of the glass is better than that of the frame due to glazing and thermal breaks. The two separate U-values are then combined to a single overall U-value.

When is the U-value the most important?

Large openings and extensions require particular attention to U-values. The larger the opening, the more important the U-value.

Both of these examples require particular U-value consideration because of the differences between window/door and brick wall U-values:

• The standard modern brick wall has a U-value of 0.8
• The regulations for bifold doors are 1.4 W/m2K. Vufold bifolds have U-values as low as 1.0 W/m2k (Vufold Ultra range).

Glass / glazing

The type of glazing on a set of kitchen bifolds will affect the U-value and therefore the thermal efficiency of the door. There are three types of glazing:

• Single
• Double
• Triple

Read our full guide to the glazing options for bifold doors here.

Single vs double vs triple glazing

Sightlines

Sightlines are the non-glass sections of bifold doors — where two panels of the bifold doors meet (also known as the door stiles). Aluminium ensures the thinnest sightlines, allowing you to get the most from a view. This is because aluminium is stronger and therefore can support more glass with less surrounding material.

How many door leafs should a bifold have for the best view?

Sightlines sit between each glass door leaf on a bifold door. The more doors leafs you have, the more sightlines. Because sightlines can impede the view, the general rule of thumb is: the fewer leafs, the better.

However, a balance needs to be considered. While larger doors can offer fewer sightlines, extremely large doors can be harder to operate.

Expert quote: “While large doors have their place, for me, the ideal door width is a metre.” - Rick Collins, Director, Vufold

Ventilation

Kitchen ventilation is important to ensure condensation is kept at a minimum. If your kitchen has poor ventilation, you may find condensation appearing on your bifold doors.

Fortunately, due to building regulations, it is unlikely that new kitchens will suffer from this problem.

However, if you do find condensation on your bifold, you will need to improve ventilation in your kitchen. This includes:

• Purchasing an extractor fan above the cooker
• Ensuring there is at least one window in your kitchen that you can open
• If the bifold door is the only ‘window’ in the room, ensuring that it has trickle vents (a small opening that allows a small amount of ventilation)

Security

Two of the most common bifold door locks are:

• Multipoint lock* — multiple locking mechanisms for added security
• Mortice lock – a single point locking system that is embedded into the door for a flush finish

Multipoint vs mortice locks

*Vufold supplies door handles that fit a Vectis type multipoint locking system.

Find out more about bifold door security features here.

Matching your bifold door to your kitchen

You will likely want to match your bifold door to the style of your kitchen to maintain style consistency. You can consider the material, colour options and style of your bifold door when matching it to your kitchen. Wooden bifold doors are perfect for both modern and traditional homes and are available in oak, white and grey colours to allow you to match them to your existing décor. Take a look at our oak bifold doors and timber bifold doors ranges.

Aluminium bifolding doors are available in grey, white, black and grey/white and offer a sleek contemporary option for your kitchen. Our aluminium bifold doors boasts the lowest threshold and some of the narrowest sightlines on the market.

Composite bifold doors offer the low maintenance associated with aluminium but with the look of a natural oak door – available in grey/oak and white/oak. This can be ideal if you are looking for the traditional appearance of oak to complement your kitchen interior – particularly if you have oak flooring and furnishing. You can also enjoy the resilience of aluminium on the outside of the doors.

You can find a comparison of all the major materials on our guide - comparing bifold door materials: wood, aluminium, composite and glass.

Are you looking for the perfect bifold door for your kitchen?

All Vufold external bifold doors are supplied as ready-to-assemble sets, and virtually every component is prepared in our factories, so they are easier to put together. Our bifold doors are available in a range of materials, configurations, glazing and finishes to suit any project.

Simply fill in our custom form or talk to us via the live web chat (bottom right of this page). After you answer some simple questions, we will be able to send a quote for your ideal patio door in a matter of minutes.

You can view our full range of external bifold doors here. You can also read more information about our external bifold doors in our advice centre.

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