Found this thread because we are being irritated by our sliding screen doors installed on the inside of our newly constructed home. Like others, I had never seen this and was going to complain to the contractor that they installed them backwards. Apparently not. But the screens inside are just plain stupid. You have to open them to grab and close the glass outer doors, which is inconvenient and also lets the bugs in while you do it. If you have the screens only partially open, there is a large gap left between the glass slider panels and the screen panels that mosquitoes and flies can fly right through. So the glass panels have to be 100% open (and perfectly aligned with the screen door panels) to avoid any gap. What if I only want to have a little air on a cool morning, and not have to open the doors all the way??? I tried leaving the glass doors partially open last night (screen doors completely closed, but again, there’s that gap); guess what??? I have mosquito bites all over my FACE this morning. We live in Baja Mexico so both hurricanes and bugs (especially mosquitoes) are an issue, but I think the clear choice is put the screen doors on the OUTSIDE. Hurricane protection is dealt with in other ways that would also protect the screens! And BTW I also grew up in Hawaii and have never, ever seen screen doors installed on the inside of sliding doors. It’s incredibly stupid.

I hear you on the weather. I don't have extreme weather but my slider roller froze and the unit was so difficult to get out (frame was overshimmed on top or header sagged) that I damaged the track. The moral of the story here is to ALWAYS specify full stainless roller assemblies. If i could pick your brain on a couple of install questions - My current slider is installed w/o using a nailing fin and there is a stucco bumpout. based on what you see in the picture, would you specify a replacement unit the same size (~96"Hx71.5"W)? Some stucco damage is inevitable and that fine but if I have to rip off lots of stucco I may rethink this. The "jamb" on the current unit is proud of the drywall about 1/2" and the casing trim butts against it. Obviously this is not standard for interior doors/windows. I suppose you can specify the jamb to be whatever width you want so if the jamb is flush with the drywall a standard casing placement (1/4" jamb reveal) could be used? As you can see from the pic the bottom track is much narrower than the jamb. A french door will have a threshold more like a standard door. Would you expect that the tile would have to be cut to allow for a wider threshold? Thanks

Love the pictures and I find the mix of answers to be kind of interesting. I come from a family of five girls and our mother had us cooking and cleaning at a really early age. We’d do chores before school, cook or help with the dishes at night and we had a variety of chores to do on Saturdays too. As an adult, I’ve always kept the home up and my daughter always had chores to do as well. I think it’s important that kids help out, if nothing else it builds character. To be honest, the idea of having somone else come in to clean up after us is really unappealing to me. We’re fairly organized though and my DH & I keep the house up together. We cook & do our maintenance cleaning one day over the weekend, and we routinely pick up after ourselves during the week. If I were to hire for anything, it would be the yards. They’re big and take a lot of work to maintain, especially in the fall, but so far, we do those ourselves too. As for the dog...well she is a part of the family and even though she’s usually right by me, she can go anywhere in the house she wants. It’s not for everyone I guess, but we wouldn’t have it anyother way.

Depends, there will holes left in the tile where the hinges and clips are removed as well as in the curb. New holes will need to be drilled for the hanging rod if you you go frameless (which is what I would recommend) or the tracks "may" cover the screw holes if you use a track system, you will be drilling new holes for the tracks. Why do you want to get rid of what you have now? That is typically a more desirable setup and nicer in my opinion.