Types of Sliding Glass Door Stops

• Sliding doors provide aesthetic beauty while maintaining home security. Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images

  Sliding glass doors provide a room with a full-length window and easy access to the outdoors. Most sliding doors open onto a porch or deck. Home safety and security is a major concern, and sliding glass doors do not have dead bolts. The best security for this type of entrance is the use of a door stop, which has several varieties.

Aesthetic Stops

• The simplest door stop is a chunk of wood sitting in the path of the sliding door. Craft makers construct visually appealing door stops. You can find these stops depicting seasonal themes, landscape themes or even animal themes. The stops sit right in the track of the sliding door, stopping it from sliding beyond a certain point. The basic aspect of this door stop is the strip of 1 x 1-inch wood sitting in the track.

Hidden Stops

• You have three main options for hidden stops on a sliding door. The quick-release track grip has a spring-loaded lip that pops up when the door is closed or presses down with your foot or hand when you need to open the door. Screw-on stops attach to the rail and prohibit the door from sliding past the stop. Both types can be placed anywhere along the track. Locks, spring-bolts or locking pins attach to the frame of the sliding door and lock it into place when closed but require you to actually lock the device. Installing any of the hidden stops is simple and usually does not require anything more than a drill.

Standard Stops

• Most every sliding door comes standard with a safety bar that swings up and down. The bar mounts about halfway up the door and swings down into a latch on the frame. The bar is a simple steel structure that prohibits the door from opening and can be locked in place with a safety pin. Other varieties include the angled-stop that locks into the track using a pin or a hanging bar that is lifted into place when you desire to block the door.