Rear extensions in Ipswich tend to arrive at the same brief. A terrace or semi with a long narrow garden behind it — the streets off Norwich Road run that way — ends up with a dark kitchen at the back and a garden used for three months of the year. One opening in the right place changes both, but on a plot this shape the right place takes working out.
A narrow plot decides where the panels go
On a wide garden the aim is usually to clear the whole opening. On a long narrow one the view that matters runs away from the house rather than across it, so what counts is where the folded panels come to rest and whether they stand in that line. Stacking everything to one side keeps the other clear, and an odd number of leaves also gives you a traffic door at the end you use most.
Folding is not automatically the answer here. Our comparison of bifold doors and sliding doors sets out where each earns its place.
What a terraced opening allows
The opening is rarely the full width of the house. A party wall each side, an original rear outrigger and whatever an earlier extension did to the back wall set the structural span before anyone picks a configuration. Access is the other thing to settle early: with no side return, frames and glass come in through the house, and a narrow hall with a turn at the end limits panel size.
Sets we have fitted near Ipswich
At Open house in a south Ipswich village we fitted a seven-leaf aluminium bifold, 7-7-0, every leaf folding across to the left so that, folded back, they do not obstruct the view of the garden, with the supports into the joists lined up with the door frames. At Get Smarts near Hadleigh, Smarts bifolds in a 3-3-0 arrangement serve both the gymnasium and the pool room.
Before anyone visits
Ipswich is about 25 to 30 minutes from our Colchester showroom along the A12. On a bifold survey the opening tells us more than the doors do: the span, whether the existing lintel carries it, how level the floor runs across the threshold, and the route the panels take through the house on delivery day.
Our bifold doors page shows the panel arrangements we work with most, and you can get an estimate without a visit.
