Hi, Wondering if anyone has experience with converting an Andersen Frenchwood slider door or similar to hinged operation. A friend has given me this Andersen door, and I plan to use it in my basement as a regular intgerior room entry door (I have built it to be relatively sound-proof).
I have a set of heavy duty hinges which I believe I can use on it. My main concern is the weight of the door, and if there is enough structure in the door to hold that weight, considering it was manufactured as a slider, vs. hinged.

 

Never done it, but I think the only issue would be the tremendous weight of the insulating glass unit (IGU) in the Frenchwood sliding door panel. The increased weight would mean you'd need to mortise 3, if not 4 hinges, into the Frenchwood slider panel and you'd want to use large wood screws- maybe #14 x 1 1/2- to attach the hinges to the door itself. And you'd need long 3" screws to secure the hinges to the framing, securing this heavy door into your jamb with shorter screws probably wouldn't last a week.

I can't tell for sure from my catalog if the rails on the Frenchwood are actually solid wood or if they have an engineered LVL core to them, which might affect whether screws would want to pull out of the rail under pressure.

And I probably don't need to mention this, but since the glass is inset into the rail by 3/4" or so, take that into account and be sure not to use too long of a screw that would hit the IGU- either the edge of the glass or the spacer material between the glass. Glass and screws don't mix.

 

Just a comment:
Ideally the door was designed to be supported from below (rolling point loads).
Why change that logic? Consider using pivot hinges instead of full mortise butt hinges.