Panel Glide Blinds Buying Guide: What We Check at Your Door

Panel glide blinds are wide, flat panels of fabric that hang from a track and slide across one another, so a big window or sliding door is covered in a few clean sections and cleared by moving them to one side. We measure, advise on and install panel glide blinds across the Central West and Sydney. Most of the choices are easier to make standing at your door than reading about them, so this guide walks through what we look at when we come out.

Where do panel glides earn their place?

They come into their own on openings over two metres wide: sliding and stacker doors out to a deck, a wall of glass in an open-plan room, or a soft divider between the lounge and a study nook. On a narrow bedroom window they're more hardware than the job needs, and a roller blind will do it more simply.

Three things decide whether they suit your home.

• Wall beside the opening. When they're drawn back, the panels bunch up one in front of another, in a bundle roughly one panel wide. If there's wall to park that bundle on, the doorway clears completely. If the glass runs into a corner, the bundle will sit over part of it.
• How you use the door. A door you walk through all day wants the panels gathering on the side that doesn't open, so you never push through fabric to get outside.
• Angling the light. Panels open and close, and that's it. If you want privacy while light still comes through, vertical blinds tilt their vanes and panels can't.

Panel glides, vertical blinds or curtains on a sliding door?

All three draw sideways, which is why they're the usual answers for a slider. Where they differ is the look and how they handle light.

• Panel glides give you a few broad, flat sections of fabric. Where two panels meet they overlap, so the light doesn't leak through the joins.
• Vertical blinds are narrow vanes that tilt as well as draw, handy when you want to steer the light without opening up the room.
• Curtains soften a room in a way no blind does, and a sheer keeps the outlook. We hand-sew ours in our Bathurst workroom, and on a slider we can set the track wide so the curtain stacks back off the glass.

That photo shows why the overlap matters. Roller blinds fitted side by side across wide glass leave a fine line of daylight at every join. Panel glide panels each run in their own channel of the track and cross over one another, so those lines close up.

Curtains are often the right call too. In this hillside home in Bathurst, full-height sheers stack back off the glass so the walk out to the pool stays clear, and in this single-storey family home S-fold sheers run across every slider for one soft line through the house.

How many panels, and which way should they stack?

We work out the panel count from your opening at the measure, but it helps to know the trade-off before we arrive. Fewer, wider panels look calmer when they're closed. More, narrower panels fold away into a smaller bundle when they're open, which matters on a door where every bit of glass you get back is view.

Stacking is one-way, with every panel gathering to the left or the right, or split, with the panels parting in the middle. One-way suits a single sliding door: gather them on the fixed side. Split suits a wide window, or a pair of doors that open from the centre.

Every extra panel needs another channel in the track, and each channel makes the track deeper. That's the first thing we check before suggesting a fit inside the reveal. In an older home with a shallow timber frame there may not be room, so we fix the track to the wall over the architrave, or to the ceiling.

Which fabric should you choose?

Panel glides hang flat, so the fabric is the whole look. Across the ranges we use there are four kinds:

• Blockout for bedrooms and media rooms, where the room needs to be dark and private after dark.
• Light-filtering, sometimes called translucent, for living areas: soft daylight and privacy, but no view out.
• Screen fabrics that take the glare off and still let you see out by day. On a west-facing slider in Orange or Dubbo, this is the one to look at for the late-afternoon sun.
• Sheer for a soft, curtain-like layer of light.

Screen and light-filtering fabrics keep you private by day, but once the lamps are on inside, people can see in. Our guide to blockout, light-filtering and sunscreen fabrics explains the difference properly, so a bedroom slider usually ends up in blockout.

You can mix colours or fabrics on one track. Some ranges also come in a roman style, with evenly spaced horizontal seams and optional stained timber battens, if flat panels feel too plain for a period home. And because a fabric that looks oatmeal in the showroom can turn grey against a south-facing wall, we bring the samples to your door and hold them up in your own light.

Wand, cord or motor?

Panel glides run on a wand or a cord. With a wand you take hold of the rod on the leading panel and walk it across, and the panels slide with it. The bottom of each panel carries a base rail or a sewn-in weight, which keeps it hanging flat as it moves.

For a very wide run, or glass that's hard to reach, Silent Gliss make a motorised panel system that works from a switch, a remote or their Move app, and we supply and install it. They also make a Flex system with a bendable carrier, so the panels can follow a corner. It's a tidy fix for a corner window or a room divider that doesn't run in a straight line.

Can panel glides divide a room?

Yes. Fixed to the ceiling, or run on a freestanding track, panel glides slide across to close off a study nook or break up a long open-plan room, then gather away when you want the space back. It's a much lighter job than putting up a wall, and in a sheer or light-filtering fabric the daylight still gets through. On the Silent Gliss systems, the panels also lift off the track for cleaning.

What happens at your free measure?

We come to you, evenings and weekends included, with fabric samples. At a sliding door we measure the opening and the wall on either side, check which way you walk out, look at the depth of the reveal and the ceiling above, and note anything the panels have to clear, like a handle or a lock. You get a written quote afterwards, with no obligation.

Your panel glides are then custom-made to order to those measurements, and our own team installs them. We glide every panel through its full travel before we leave, and the packaging goes with us. Everything we install comes with our 2-year warranty against faulty manufacture or installation.

We've been measuring and fitting windows since 1977, from Bathurst, Orange, Mudgee and Dubbo across the Central West, to Sydney's eastern suburbs and lower north shore. If you're weighing up blinds against curtains for the colder months, our piece on curtains for Central West winters is worth a read before we visit.

Book a free measure and quote, or drop into our Bathurst showroom to see the fabrics in person.

Panel glide blinds: common questions

Are panel glides good for sliding doors?

Yes, especially openings over two metres. Have the panels gather on the side of the door that doesn't open, and give the bundle some wall to sit on so the doorway clears.

Will panel glides make a room dark?

In a blockout fabric, very nearly. No light passes through the cloth itself, and the joins close up where the panels cross. Some still creeps in at the sides, and a track fixed over the architrave and a little past it cuts that down.

Can panel glides be motorised?

Yes, on systems like the Silent Gliss motorised panel track, which runs from a switch, a remote or an app. Otherwise it's a wand, which is simple and leaves no cord hanging down.

Should I choose panel glides or vertical blinds?

Choose panel glides for a flatter, quieter look with fewer joins. Choose verticals if you want to tilt the vanes to let light in while keeping some privacy.

What do panel glides cost?

It depends on the width, the drop, the fabric, the number of panels and how you open them. We measure for free and send a written quote, so you know the full cost before you decide.