In summer the terrace door is the busiest door in the house. It is opened fifty times a day, left half open for the breeze, pushed with a foot while carrying a tray, and it takes in sand from every pair of feet coming back from the beach. In Santa Pola, where more than half of today’s properties were built in the 1990s and 2000s, that door is very often an aluminium or PVC slider.
By September, the wear shows.
The three usual faults
It grinds or sticks on the track. Sand in the bottom track, and rollers worn or clogged.
It closes but will not lock. The hook inside the frame no longer meets its keeper. Often the lock itself is fine and the door has dropped a few millimetres on worn rollers, so everything is out of line.
The handle turns but nothing happens, or turns too far. The handle’s spindle or the gearbox it drives has worn or broken.
Four checks before you ring anyone
- Vacuum the bottom track. Do not wash it: water just moves the sand along into the rollers.
- Look at the gap. Close the door and look along the edge. A wider gap at the top than at the bottom means the door has dropped.
- Find the adjusting screws. Many sliders have small screws at the bottom of the door, at each end, that raise or lower the rollers. A quarter turn at a time, both sides equally.
- Lubricate the right way. A silicone or PTFE spray on the rollers and on the hook. Never oil or grease, which holds sand.
If the hook now meets the keeper and locks, you are done.
When to stop
- The rollers are broken or flat-spotted, so the door bumps along.
- The hook is bent or the keeper is cracked.
- The handle spins freely.
- The glass is very heavy and the door needs lifting off the track.
Those are parts to replace, not adjustments. The work is described on the sliding door page.
Before you leave for the winter
Clean the track, lock the slider so it sits aligned, and close any shutter over it. A slider left unlocked and ajar for months comes back out of shape. More on the effect of the sea air in what salt and sand do inside a lock, and on the locks of older properties in a 2000s bungalow and the builder’s cylinders.