I have a three-pane mirrored closet doors on my closet in the bedroom. They’ve been nothing but a pain since I’ve moved in. They slide on a rail screwed into the floor, using 2 wheels each. Pretty typical, IMO. However, the wheels on the metal wheel assemblies have “Plastic tires” on them, and I have not been able to find replacement wheels that didn’t have plastic on them. This plastic shatters about 4-6 hours after replacing the wheel, rendering the door essentially unuseable. Right now I have to take off the doors to get into my closet, which is a major inconvinience.
In my opinion I have three options:
a) Take off the doors and live with an ugly exposed closet.
b) Find replacement wheels/wheel assemblies that will fit and are made of metal(or very hard rubber), home depot doesn’t seem to carry anything like this.
c) Get new doors (I don’t really want to pay for new doors).
Now, I don’t really know how to go about doing b) or c) so I’d love to hear any suggestions on how to procede. Should I check some hardware stores? Are there mail catalogs akin to “Close Door Wheel Shopper”?
You could just take the doors off and put up a cheap-ass curtain if you like, if the open closet offends you. You can make your own for practically nothing, or pick up something cheap at the big box store. Hold it up with a spring-loaded curtain rod, or substitute a shower rod if it’s cheaper at the size you need and get tab-topped curtains.
There is one more option that hasn’t occured to you:
Find out why the wheels are shattering so quickly.
Something is obviously not fitting right. Any replacement wheel is still going to be misaligned and if you replace the plastic wheels with metal ones (and good luck finding such wheels, btw) you will be risking damage to the track. Chances are that the doors were improperly installed or adjusted at some point before you moved in.
Well I’d love to keep the mirrors, it just seems that the plastic is very flimsy while the door is very heavy. The replacement wheels I got had plastic flimsy enough to break off with my bare hands.
I know little about sliding door hardware. However, if the door is too heavy for the existing wheels, and the wheels are specific to the rail, how feasible would it be to replace both the rail and wheels with a system more suited to heavier doors?
There are two companies that I know of in the US that manufacture all of those parts for doors and windows, but they only sell to people like me-contractors. They also have a $25 minimum order. So, if you want to mail me one of your wheels, I’ll see what replacements exist and how much they cost.
We had heavy metal sliding closet doors in our house when we moved in, and the wheels on some of them were broken, plus the doors were dented and crappy looking. In my daughter’s room, you basically had to “hitch” (or hump) the door over to open and close it.
We ended up taking all of them off and getting wooden bi-fold doors for all the closets from Home Depot. I don’t remember how much they were, but I don’t think they were very expensive. I know we replaced four sets all at once - they couldn’t have been too pricey. They’re hollow-core, with raised panels. Nice-looking, IMO, but not mirrored.
A really GOOD hardware store (they are rare) may very well have what you need or be willing to order it. By a GOOD hardware store I mean an incredibly well stocked, indepenent or possibly an Ace (the kind with rows and rows of wooden drawers), not a big box store that sells mostly new items and carries a minimum of replacement parts. Good luck.