Some french door mfgr's offer screens as an option or you can go with something like these:

Here is a link that might be useful: french door screens

Sliding glass doors are associated with a mid-century modern style that not many people are building as new today. Other reasons are issues with energy-efficiency and security.

My main complaint against sliding doors is the track that they slide on. I have pets and the hair gets caught in the wheel, then the entire door needs to be taken down, wheels cleaned, etc. Also, the wheels wear out and that's just another maintenance issue I don't want to deal with. I can't wait to get to my new house with my french doors. No more track to clean or replace!!

I don't have that concern about opening them because we opted to screen in half the back porch so we can open one set of doors in the great room and the one that leads to the master bedroom.

However, I think the screen mentioned above sounds like a wonderful option.

In our new home we have doors that open from the dining area onto a porch. We bought the kind that look like french doors but are hinged in the center and just one side actually opens. The door came with a screen and it also has the blinds between the glass. The blinds tilt open and can also be pulled up for a completely open feeling.

How come I never thought of this?!? We put in several sets of french doors and I always "envision" the home with them open but never gave a thought to screens. (I'm an idiot)! Thank God for BAH forum. Guess I'm off to look at retractable screens! Thanks for posting this! j.

jaymielo, I was thinking exactly the same :)

Guess I can just have the best of both worlds then!:) Thanks so much for your input, and thank you to sierraeast and tinker for the links! You guys are great!

We have a slider in the kitchen because a french door would interfere with the kitchen table. We have a french door (with screen) in the great room because it works in that location.

We used the retractable screens on all our doors in our last house, both sliders and French doors. They worked like a charm!

We have a slider in our current house and it's a pain because of the track & wheels getting stuck all of the time.

In our new house, we are going to have two separate French doors. The one it the living room will not have screens because we want to be able to enjoy the view. When we want ventilation, we'll open the two windows beside the French door. The French door in the master bedroom will have screens.

We're going with Marvin Integrity. I saw the display models at a local supplier and was very impressed with them. You should check them out.

Keep in mind the space an open, swinging door takes. At first we were going to go with French door on the 12 foot opening to our porch but our 1900 Sq Ft house needs all the space it can get and the sliders were MUCH better in that respect. I don't think energy efficiency is much different on today's French doors or sliders. The screen issue is also one to be thought of..In moderate weather, the 8' of clear area is nice (3 panel sliders), I don't think we'd have been near as happy with the swinging doors. Gary

We bought a very expensive heavy slider in our old house and LOVED it for about 6 months. Then as pet hair, sand, whatever got into the track, it became harder and harder to slide. It was a 6' door, meaning that although we had the light of a 6' opening, we only had 34" of actual open space.

When I designed the new house I created an huge opening between the dining area and the huge sunroom. I ordered a triple french door with the far left panel fixed, and the two other panels opening out into the sunroom. The right door opens flat against the wall, the left door opens flat against the fixed panel and I have a 6' wide open space between the dining room and the sunroom. I LOVE it.

We have an Andersen 400 series wood triple slider. We went with a slider instead of a swinging door because of the kitchen table and because of how we anticipated placing furniture on the deck outside the door. I was a little skeptical about getting a slider, but I have been very pleased with the Andersen slider both in terms of how easy it slides and how good it is at sealing out the weather. I think that there is a big difference between how a triple slider and a double slider look. The tracks have not been a problem for us, and we have pets. We have two boys who are not careful. I didn't think that they would be careful enough with the retractable screens for us to go that route and I thought it was inevitable that furniture on the deck would get moved too close to the door from time to time and I didn't want to risk having a glass door swining into the arm of a chair, etc. We had originally planned to use a french door but someone pointed out the potential problems in our spaces with a swinging door so we switched to a slider. Good luck.

We have five sliders and five french doors (Pella)...and a lot of window washing! The french doors are all single doors and twp of the sliders are doubles (i.e., four panes of glass each). We live in the Sacramento area and enjoy bringing the outdoors in. The screen doors on the sliders are spring-loaded so they close behind you automatically, a very handy feature. Space wasn't a concern for us and we easily could have accommodated french doors throughout but for us the focus wasn't on the doors but rather on the view and the sliders are very unobtrusive in that respect. And although our home is an old-world Tuscan design, the sliders work just fine aesthetically.

On the subject of window washing, we discovered the Mr. Clean AutoDry Car Washing system makes washing all those windows a breeze. It's a device that attaches to the hose and dispenses either soap or clear water. But it also dispenses de-ionized water for use in the final rinse so that windows can self-dry without spotting...a big time saver. No squeegeeing, no wiping and the windows are spotless! We wash the windows with a sponge mop, rinse with water and DI water and we're done. If you have divided light windows, it wouldn't be of much help but for large panes of glass, it's invaluable.

Bob