I love the idea and look of French doors, but we chose a four panel (Anderson) slider that opens from the center to go from our dining area into our sunroom. They may not have quite the charm that French doors do, but when both sides are pulled open from the center they really do open the rooms and allow easy traffic in and out when entertaining - almost like taking a wall down - and best of all there is no lost space in either room. My heart wanted to go with French doors for the feeling they evoked, but my head went with the sliders for practicality. I'm pleased with the look, and I don't regret the decision at all. BTW Ours went in a new build. Much as I love mine, I wouldn't go with sliders if I were restoring a period home.

Probably any rod longer than 54" will require some type of center support. It doesn't have anything to do with the anchors. The rod will sag under it's own weight. That's why you need center support for shelves after about 36" Can you not slide the panels in both directions? Here is the info from the Restoration Hardware website about rods and brackets. Available in custom lengths from 12" to 180" (15') 12-60"L rod is composed of one rod and requires no center bracket 61-120"L rod is composed of two equal-length rods cut to size and includes 1 center bracket 121-180"L rod is composed of one 60" middle rod with two equal-length outer rods to make up the total length and includes 2 center brackets

nydio, what are your priorities for the door? That will really dictate wood vs vinyl. I install both Marvin products, as well as Okna and some other vinyl lines, and the right answer really lies in what you want out of the door. If the rich feel of real wood is at the top of that list, it is hard to beat a wood door. If you want something very airtight and efficient, the high end vinyl lines are hard to beat. I will say that while I generally like the Integrity line as a reasonably priced wood interior option, I installed a sliding door recently that has a bit more air leakage than my client liked. Upon replacing a few parts, it improved a little bit, but ultimately it was determined that the performance was as expected. Conversely, some of the tighter sealing vinyl doors take a little more effort to operate due to all of the weatherstripping and tight tolerances. I'd recommend checking out some displays to really get a good idea of the look and feel... If by chance your primary reason for wanting a wood interior is the ability to match a stain color, Okna does have a stainable interior laminate as well. The Sunrise is another good vinyl door.

Pete, I can understand while you might initially find that distasteful. Protect from price competition? Kind of. Not nearly the full story though. Let's say that you made a widget, and your widget was better than others on the market. You spent a lot more money researching and developing your widget, and spend more on materials and labor to produce the widget. This widget needs to be installed by qualified individuals to work properly. Now let's say you are in an industry where any Joe blow can become a professional widget installer with no certification or training and there is a very small initial investment needed to start a business widget installing. Basically any drunk with a hammer and a tool belt can do it. With all of the time and money that you have spent building the brand and quality of your widget, wouldn't you want only highly qualified, vetted, reputable, and financially stable widget installers putting in your product? Of course you would. You would not want people to think poorly of your widget because of a jabroni installer right? This is what you will find with nearly all high end window products, and for that reason. Does that limit price competition? To some extent yes. It limits it to companies that have a good reputation and volume, and have to charge a minimum price to be able to sustain that. The neighbor guy that works for beer money cannot get it. Whether you believe it or not, that offers some protection to you as a consumer in addition to helping the dealer of the product as well as the manufacturer protect their brand. Why can Pella and Andersen sell to anyone then? Because they have built their brands into household names many years ago when there were far more cratfsmen, and fewer rip off artists. You can certainly find a ton of bad reviews about each of them today, however their reputations were cemented long ago for the most part, whether deserved today or not. This is also why most of the other manufacturers that are available anywhere for anyone to buy, are not very good. They are made to meet a low price point, and they know that there will always be a steady supply of people that buy on price alone. That is their niche. Okna and Sunrise and other high end products operate differently. Frankly if you don't like the way that is done, you are severely limiting yourself when it comes to quality choices. Lastly, are there companies that take advantage of exclusivity? Sure. Sometimes they do that without the manufacturer protection if they are shady enough. I know of a company that sold the same window that was $189 from a national chain for over $1200ea by just making up their own brand name and brochures. Pretty shameful. A patio door equivalent would be $5k for a mediocre door. Again, $2500 for a very good door is reasonable.