Which way for PVC patio doors

[crank39]

Handles and trickle vents are just screwed on and can be swapped around right now. The face drain slot that will be inside after the swap around can be cloaked over with a bit of pvc trim available from places like eurocell, fill the threshold slots with white silicone, pump them full. Drill new slots straight down like I've shown in this pic.........

The black arrows show your existing drainage set up, that is called 'face drainage, fill all this up with silicone. Drill new slots straight up and down while the doors are out, shown in green, this is called 'concealed drainage' as you can't see the exit holes, much better and tidyier

 

[crank39]

Can't see any problems with swapping around other than drainage which I've covered. Going onto the glazing beads though and in particular the windows, how does the internal rubber gasket differ from the doors if at all, it just strikes me that the window beads could be removed and glass taken out IF and I'm just saying IF that internal rubber is not either 1/ a wedge gasket which pushes the glass outwards and locks the beads into place or 2/ a double sided security glazing tape which bonds the glass onto the frame so it cant be removed easily. By swapping the doors round you may inadvertently make it easy to remove the glass IF the glass in the doors isnt fitted the same as the windows, check that it looks the same or post up some close up pictures of the window and door gasket set up

 

[lostinthelight]

We have 3 different pvcu doors on the property we recently bought, 2 outward and the other inward. The latter has the internal dwarf wall cut at an angle so it opens more than 90°.
One outer opening door has standard hinges but is flush with the face of the external wall and it opens parallel against it.
The other is set in as normal but has parliment type hinges to throw it past 90°...both outward opening ones have hinge bolts for security.
litl

 

[Gazman16]

If you decide to take the doors out that could be a pain of a job in itself. You have by the looks of it aluminum couplers either side connecting to the windows.
These clip into the channels of both the doors and the windows by about 5mm so you may have move a window over 5-10mm to be able to get the doors out.
Then seal and drill new drainage as described by Crank and check that the glass on the doors has either security clips or tape

 

[Gaz the Sparky]

Thanks to crank39 for all the very useful info I think if i can confirm the window seals then I might have a go at some point and take the full frame out and try and swap it around.

I have included some pictures of the window glazing beads inside and out and the door beads inside and out. I hope you can see and understand the photos

This is the glazing bead on the inside of the house on the patio doors

the glazing on the outside of the house on the patio doors



glazing beads on the windows on the outside of the house

This is the interior of the glazing on the windows

I hope these make sense to people and you can see the type of glazing seals I have

Cheers

 

[Gazman16]

The beads can go either way on doors and windows but if they are outside you need additional security of clips or security tape
The door and windows have different beads so they may be different makes.
You will need to take the beads out and try removing the glass to find out if you have them (although the clips will be fairly obvious if you have those)

 

[crank39]

If you turn the doors round then the beads become vulnerable to being removed easily, the gasket outside which will become inside is only clip in E gasket or firtree gasket and has no security properties whatsoever. After the swap around you'll need to remove the glass from both doors and replace the gasket with a suitable thickness glazing tape, about 3 or 4mm should do do, this won't stop anyone removing the beads but it will stop them carrying on and removing the glass. You will then or course need to re toe and heel the glass in order to get the doors to work.

As for the windows, they are old HWP windows, 'Heywood Williams plastics', can be a tricky bead to remove should you need to in case the window has been screwed through into the door rather than door into the window, you'll need to remove the glass to get at the screws. The beads are very brittle and one wrong thump with a mallet will see them crack,trust me, ive repaired many for the hamfisted service engineers I used to work with, can be a nightmare to locate too for the inexperienced. Further to this, these windows with these beads should be glazed with glazing tape due to the beads being easy to remove but in your pictures it looks like it's just a coextruded sightline gasket, very odd, certainly doesn't look like glazing tape, but like gaz says the glass might be on security clips instead but you won't know until you remove the beads, hopefully you won't need to!

People must think this window lark is easy, the above must read like double dutch to a novice, to a window guy it's all straightforward day to day stuff though