It depends on how handy you are. It doesn’t always require a contractor.
If you’re handy, it’s usually possible to do.
It also depends on what sliding door hardware your choosing.
They do come with installation instructions.
If you’ve ever installed a door before, or if you have built the shed that’s out back or something, if you’ve built sliding door hardware before, you can probably hang a sliding door.
I’ve done it before, and if I can do it…
Literally it only takes a drill motor and a level to install one of these things, but there are a few other little things to consider that an inexperienced person might not know to look for.
The biggest problem is if there’s proper blocking in the wall or ceiling to hold the track up.
People don’t consider what the weight load of the door is going to be supported by in the wall.
If there isn’t, then you have to go into your walls and add some type of supporting sliding door hardware, wood in the wall to support the track.
They usually think that they can drill through their drywall and hang their door up and it’s going to be fine, but drywall is kind of like a bunch of dust smashed together, so it’s not going to support it.
You either have to put a backer board or blocking, or something across the length of the track that’s sturdy enough to hold up the weight of the door and the sliding door hardware and have it slide across.
If it’s in a residence and you can get up into the attic, some times you can get down in the wall and put blocking behind the drywall or some sort of wood reinforcement behind the drywall, so that when you screw through the drywall, it’ll go into that blocking or wood support, so it will be supported that way.
It also depends on which system you’re talking about.
Some are a little harder to install.
Box track is probably the easiest because the brackets can be moved.
Where you attach it to the wall is up to you, so you can move the brackets to find the studs.
Some of the higher end sliding door hardware has the holes pre-drilled into the rail, so you have to put the blocking where the mounts are.
You can’t adjust it in the field.
Keeping everything level is a really, really crucial thing.
I’ve had homeowners try to install a door before, and when they get it up on the wall, it starts to creep closed or creep open.
That’s just because they didn’t get the track perfectly level when they installed it.
Depending on the application, the more doors you have on the application, the more difficult it gets.
On glass doors, we typically tell you use whoever you’re getting the glass from, because handling glass is a little trickier.
