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How To Install A Sliding Closet Door Article
9. How to Install a Sliding Closet Door
from:When installing a sliding closet door, the size of the opening should be at least four feet. This is to make sure that when the door is slid to one side there is still enough opening to access the inside the closet.
Remove the existing door completely and discard, so the room is clear of debris. You now need to evaluate the opening. If the opening has exposed framing, you will first have to trim it out using a 1x6 finish board on standard 2x4 construction interior walls. Start with trimming the top of the doorway by measure the opening, cutting the new trim board, and using finish nails, nail into the framing. Then repeat these steps for both sides and use a nail set to sink the nail heads just below the surface. Now both sides of the door opening need to have casing applied between the new trim board and the wall. See ‘How to Apply Door Casing’ to complete this step. With the door opening finished, it would be best to finish this now before the new door is hung. While the door finish dries, take your measurements of the opening to a local hardware store to get your new sliding door.
With the new sliding door unpacked and all the pieces spread out, start by centring and mounting the top rail. There should be mounting screws to mount the rail to the top, pre-drilling may be required to keep the rail straight and centred. It is important that this is securely fastened as the weight of the sliding door rests on the top rail. With the top rail installed, the bottom rail needs to be installed to the floor. This needs to be centred as well, to make sure the doors will slide properly between the top and bottom rails. Now is it time to hang the new doors. The top of the door will have a guide wheel that needs to be tipped at an angle and pushed up and into the top rail, then slowly lowered to rest securely in the rail. Sliding the first door to one side, repeat the process for the second door and then slowly slide both doors from side to side to make sure they move freely. Now the bottoms of the doors need to be secured to the bottom rail. At the bottom of each door there will be a clip in each corner. These clips will slide up and down to accommodate any unevenness between the floor and top of door frame. These clips need to be pushed and locked down into the bottom rail and locked in, keeping the door bottoms from swinging into each other.
Test the doors one last time and enjoy.