We have a sliding glass door to our patio. The opening side is jammed up against a wall, meaning you have to scrape against that wall unless you throw the door all the way open. On the other side there's plenty of room.
I had the thought to reverse the door so that the left side slid, instead of the right side. Now, given that glass doors are sold in left- and right-handed, I imagine this is a bit involved. But can it be done without replacing the entire unit? If so, what's involved?
With andersen the task of swapping sides is possible with a little work. What has to happen is all the holes for the handle, lock and latch has to be drilled into the opposite side. The most intricate will be the channel that houses the latch. I cut that by using a large drill bit and making several holes then taking a dremel tool to finish. Finally you will need to plug the original holes with some kind of silicone or calking. I used white so it blends in.
Then all you have to do is move the stationary door over and cut a new hole for the latch. ( I did not have to do this step because all I was trying to do is replace a broken opp door with one I found online, that happened to be the wrong side. )
If the door can be reversed (and that's a big if) then I can't imagine it can be done without removing the entire door frame. The fixed pane is, well, fixed and unless you see a way to detach it from the frame and attach it to the other side then you may be out of luck.
So let's assume you can't remove the fixed frame. Well, you could try rotating the door. This should work, but it would put the rail on the outside of the door. I don't know how this exposure would affect the longevity of the product, and you'd certainly be prone to more things getting built up in the track. This also means that the exterior side of the glass would be facing the interior. A lot of modern glass has reflective coatings and treatments on the outside for energy efficiency purposes. You'd be losing this, and likely by making it worse in the summer (as energy would more readily penetrate and less readily escape). Lastly, if your door is flashed and sealed, and if it has a flange around the frame, it might not even fit the other way without sticking out of the siding, and if it's vinyl it likely has drain holes in the frame which would now drain into the house.
You'd then have to reverse the lockset and handle on the door. This is probably the easiest part.
But, in conclusion, you should recognize that you would likely:
In my humble opinion, each of these together would warrant simply buying a new sliding door to replace this one. Because the door frame isn't really all that expensive. The issue is the labor of removing, replacing and resealing the door.... which I think you'd have to do either way.
