Sliding door on a floor plan
A sliding door on a floor plan is drawn as two thin panels set side by side inside the thickness of the wall, slightly offset so they overlap in the middle. There is no swing arc, because the door does not swing. Below is the symbol drawn in a wall with each part named, the other kinds of sliding door, and what each one leaves open.
The sliding door symbol, part by part
- The fixed panel, on the outer track. It is drawn in the wall and does not move.
- The sliding panel, on the inner track. Some plans add an arrow showing which way it opens.
- Where the two panels overlap. This is where the door seals and the lock usually sits.
- The door mark. D2 sends you to the door schedule, which gives the size, the frame, the glass and the hardware.
The drawing is a plan, so it shows the door as seen from above, cut part of the way up. The panels are the thin lines inside the wall, not the heavy wall lines either side. Offices draw the panels as single lines, as thin rectangles, or with the glass shown as a line inside each frame. The idea is the same in each: two panels on two tracks.
O and X: reading which panel slides
Many plans and door schedules mark each panel with a letter, read from outside the house: O for a fixed panel and X for one that slides. OX is a two-panel door whose right panel slides, seen from outside. XO is the same door handed the other way. OXXO is a four-panel door with fixed ends. This is a drafting habit, not a rule, and the door schedule or the legend on the sheet is what settles it.
Kinds of sliding door and how each is drawn
- Two panels, one fixed (OX) The common sliding door: one panel stays put and the other slides past it on its own track. Where they overlap, the drawing shows both.
- Two panels, both sliding (XX) Either panel can be pushed aside, so the opening can be on the left or the right.
- Four panels (OXXO) Two fixed panels at the ends and two in the middle that slide outwards behind them. Common across a wide lanai opening.
- Stacking or multi-track door Three or more panels on their own tracks that stack together at one side, so most of the wall can open.
- Pocket door The panel slides into a hollow in the wall, drawn dashed because it is hidden. The wall beside the opening has to be free of pipes, wiring and switches.
- Barn door A panel hung on a rail on the face of the wall. The open position is drawn dashed beside the opening, where the wall must be clear.
- Sliding window, for comparison Drawn the same way but with jamb lines and a sill, and tagged W, not D. The tag beside it settles which one you are looking at.
- Folding door, which does not slide A zigzag of hinged leaves that fold against each other. It is often confused with a sliding door on a plan.
How much of the opening a sliding door leaves
A sliding door saves the floor a swing door needs for its arc, which is why it suits small bedrooms, a CR next to a corridor, and the wall between a living room and a lanai. The cost is the opening. A two-panel sliding door only ever opens about half of its width, because one panel has to sit behind the other.
So when a plan shows a sliding door where people will carry furniture through, or where someone uses a wheelchair or a walker, check the width of the opening, not of the door. BP 344, the Accessibility Law, sets sizes for public buildings rather than houses, but its figures are a useful yardstick at home, and the BP 344 guide lists them.
Checking a sliding door on your own plan
- Find the tag. Every door should have a mark such as D2. Look it up in the door schedule for the size and the type, and check the panels drawn agree with it.
- Check the wall beside it. A pocket or barn door needs a clear length of wall as wide as the panel. Look on the electrical sheet for switches and outlets drawn there.
- Look at the outside doors. On a door to the lanai or the garden, ask how the track drains. Rain driven in by a typhoon collects in the track, and the detail at the sill is what stops it coming in.
- Ask about the screen. Against mosquitoes, a sliding door to the outside usually needs a screen panel on a third track. That changes the frame, so it belongs on the plan, not added later.
Sliding panels are old in the Philippines. The bahay na bato opened whole walls with sliding capiz windows, and the modern bahay kubo uses sliding glass and woven screens the same way. The full floor plan symbols legend has the swing, double, folding and pocket doors beside it, and the other symbols drawn in detail are windows and stairs.