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Sliding Glass Door Track is Bent

3K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  dd57chevy 
#1 ·
I was a landlord for the first time this past year, and I had a couple of surprises when I visited the place to say goodbye to my tenant. The largest being that the sliding glass door barely opened and when it did it would come off the track.

I did a little research online, and the general solution to this is just to raise the wheels up so is slides better. Seems easy enough. However, the track on the door is actually bent and chipped. I attached some pictures.

My question is this... Would raising the wheels be enough to get door rolling again? Or do I need to focus on a straight track too? I will only have 3 days of vacancy to address the problem, so I'd like to know soon whether this is going to be something more serious than tightening a few screws or putting on new wheels.

And on a different note, is this normal wear and tear for a door to do this? The track is physically chipped. I was shocked that it would be this warped and beat up.
 

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#2 ·
Yikes!
That is not normal wear and tear, nor will you be able to get that door operating smoothly again based on those pics.... I can't think of a solution off the top of my head short of replacing that door. Aluminum doors are generally terrible anyway unless you are located in a hot climate.
 
#8 ·
I have seen it this bad.

One time I hired someone to do some remodeling for a bathroom. They had to knock out a lot of tile work, and behind that was thick set mortar. They used a wheel barrow to move the heavy debris back and forth from the bathroom to the outside, and the wheel barrow center wheel was sort of deflated. After about oh 100 trips or so back and forth, yeah the tracks look like that.
 
#5 ·
I'm not sure what happened. I lived in this apartment for 3 years before I rented it. The door wasn't great, but I never thought this would happen in just 12 months. I have no clue what my tenant did to it.

I'd like to return as much of the security deposit as possible, so I'm trying to decide if this is "normal wear and tear". From what I'm reading, it doesn't sound like this is common.
 
#7 ·
I've replaced a few of these. The main problem is finding a new threshold that matches the current one. I don't like the fact that most windows, storm doors, and sliding glass doormakers do not put their name where they can be seen after installation. I drew out the one's I have replaced as best I could and took them to a locally owned builder supply store and they researched until they found a match. Much better than dealing with a big box store.
 
#11 ·
I had that problem, too and it about drove me crazy. Literally.

Measure the length of the track, go to your local metal mart and get a length of 3/4" angle iron. Remove both doors, carefully. Place the angle iron over the old track, put the doors back, get the door's wheels set up on the angle iron and you're good to go!
 
#12 · (Edited by Moderator)
Not trying to be contrary , but aren't your pics from the jamb side of the stationary side ? It seems a little unlikely that a tenant would remove the stationary slab & run a wheeled device back & forth over it ........

That damage kinda look like pry marks . I think it would be more likely that the door jumped off the track & the tenant tried to pry it back in place .

Whatever the cause , if you do try to adjust it , be sure to take the weight off the mechanism first . In other words , lift up the door before turning the adjusting screw .
 
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