Guides

A slim profile door is an aluminium glass door with much narrower frame sections than a standard system, so more of the opening is glass. As a general market guide, standard aluminium door frames are often around 45–70 mm wide, while slim systems can be around 20–35 mm.

Most automatic door failures come down to a handful of causes: a dirty or misaligned sensor, debris in the floor guide, a worn belt or roller, a tripped power supply or the wrong programme setting. A few of these you can check safely yourself. Anything involving the operator, the glass or the wiring needs a technician.

Automatic doors work well in UAE homes. The most popular choices are a motorised sliding or telescopic door to a garden, terrace or pool, a concealed automatic slider between living areas, and an automatic pivot door at the main entrance. Installation starts with a site survey, because the opening, the structure above it and the power supply decide what can be fitted.

An automatic sliding glass door is a glass entrance driven by a motorised operator in the header. It slides the panels sideways when a sensor detects someone approaching and closes them once the doorway is clear. For shops, clinics, offices and malls in Dubai it is the default choice, because it handles heavy footfall without swinging into anyone’s path.

A telescopic door is a sliding door split into two or more panels that run on parallel tracks and move together, so they stack neatly behind one another when the door opens. You get a noticeably wider clear opening than a standard sliding door gives you in the same wall space.

In Dubai, “invisible door”, “hidden door” and “concealed door” usually describe the same product: a door hung in a concealed aluminium frame so it sits flush with the wall, with no architrave and no visible hinges. The real differences are in the finish, the hardware and the wall it goes into, which is what this guide covers.