How To Clean Internal Folding French Doors

Cleaning internal folding French doors is much the same as cleaning regular internal doors. As long as you’re aware of what you can and can’t use on specific materials, cleaning your internal doors shouldn’t cause you any issues.

The difference between internal single doors and internal folding French doors is that folding French doors typically have panes of glass in them. In contrast, the majority of standard internal doors are wood. This makes the process of cleaning your folding French doors slightly different, but no more difficult.

As internal doors aren’t susceptible to weather damage, you don’t need to maintain them as much. External doors, depending on where you live and the average weather conditions, should be cleaned every 3-months. For internal doors, we’d say an average of 2 times a year, or maybe just when you carry out your spring clean!

If your internal doors experience high foot traffic, we’d recommend that you up the number of times that you clean and maintain them. Generally speaking, internal doors only need surface cleaning every half a year, or so. If your door encounters issues, we’d advise that you carry out full maintenance on the door to ensure that it won’t ruin over time – you can vastly increase your door’s lifespan by caring for it.

In this article, we’re going to share the best way to clean your internal folding French doors; the equipment that you’ll need, and the best method and product type for your door’s material.

As the majority of internal folding French doors are made from wood – whether that be engineered softwood or oak veneer, to name a few – our cleaning process will be largely based around wooden doors; however, we’ll still provide you with tips on cleaning uPVC and aluminium folding French doors.

What Equipment Is Needed for Cleaning Internal Folding French Doors?

• Duster/clean, dry cloth
• Glass spray
• Kitchen roll or lint-free cloth
• Warm, soapy water
• Clean sponge
• Clean toothbrush

What Are the Best Products to Use on Internal Folding French Doors?

For cleaning your internal folding French doors, the simplest products are by far the best. The best products to use are clean and dry cloths, warm water, and a glass spray (if your door has glass inserts).

This will differ slightly depending on the material of your door. If you want to splash out a little, maybe you buy a product that specifically cleans and protects wood; however, you wouldn’t want to purchase a wood cleaner for a uPVC door. This is why we tend to stick to generic products – they can be used on all door surfaces!

If you want to take your internal door maintenance a step further, you can also purchase WD40 to protect and ease those squeaky hinges.

How Should I Clean My Internal Folding French Doors?

Let’s start with the prep:

• Grab the equipment that you’ll need as listed above.
• Ensure your water is warm and that the soap you use is correct for the material of your door.
• Move anything away from the door that may obstruct your cleaning.
• Remove anything off the door that you don’t want to get wet, i.e. coat hooks, posters.

Now we have prepared the door; we can get on to that all-important clean:

1. Using a dry, clean cloth, wipe the surface of the door. Including any crevices, the side panels and the door’s frame. This is to remove any loose dirt and dust.
2. Using the water and soap from your bucket, gently wipe the door’s entire area. It’s important to ring out the cloth or sponge before you clean the door. Excess water on a vertical surface isn’t a good idea!
3. If you’ve cleaned the door, but there are patches of pesky dirt, this is where the toothbrush comes in. Dip the toothbrush into the soapy water and gently work the bristles into the dirt. This should slowly lift the dirt off the door’s surface. For this, we’d recommend a soft bristle brush to avoid scratching the surface (this is especially true of aluminium doors). If you haven’t got a soft bristle toothbrush, use a regular toothbrush but make sure you’re extra gentle. For aluminium doors, we’d advise against using a regular toothbrush altogether. Scratch marks are very apparent on this material.
4. Remove any soap off the door with a clean cloth and a bit of warm water.
5. Moving on to the glass inserts. Spray your glass cleaner on the surface of the glass panes. Without giving it time to drip on to the door, grab your kitchen roll or lint-free cloth and work the glass cleaner into the glass.
6. Ensure the glass is completely dry before walking away to admire your work. If there is any residue of glass cleaner, this may eventually drip down and cause smears on the glass.
7. Leave your door to dry.

For folding French doors, we’d advise that you have some WD40 on hand and to give your door’s hinges and pivots a little squirt every now and then. As the door’s fold 180-degrees, we wouldn’t want them getting stiff!

There you have it, a really simple and easy-to-follow guide on how to clean your internal folding French doors. This really shouldn’t take you much time at all, and the benefits of this casual maintenance is astonishing.