How to prevent large wardrobe doors from sliding?

Question

I have a large wardrobe(3.5 meters) with 5 sliding doors and 2 tracks. 3 doors are on track A while 2 doors are on track B.

The problem is that the person who made this did not think about the wood working under door's load. There are drawers under the doors and if the door is close to the middle of a drawer it will create a bulge and slide automatically to the middle of the drawer. This creates a lot of spots where the door won't stay in place and will slide randomly no matter how much leveling you will do

Has anyone encountered an issue like this? Is there any possible way to prevent the doors from sliding uncontrollably? I guess increasing friction could help with that but no idea how to achieve that

Answer 1

Only thoughts I have involve either bungee cords/springs/increased friction/catches to hold the doors in the fully closed or open position, or rebuilding to stiffen and/or decouple the junction between drawers and closet.

Of those, I think implementing a spring catch (or magnets?) to hold the doors when they are fully to one side or the other appeals most to me as a compromise.

Nothing in a house ever stays exactly square, level, or plumb under load or across years. If the cabinet doesn't shift, the house eventually will.

Answer 2

The underlying problem is that the tracks the doors sit in isn't strong enough. You could address the symptoms by adding catches or friction or weights.

Fix the cause - strengthen the top panel of the drawers. This will take away the sag and keep the track level. Also allows you to sit here to put on shoes or similar when door is open.

First, decide if you want to add the bracing on top of the drawer cabinet where it will be visible on opening sliding doors, OR add bracing inside the drawer cabinets which will impact how much you can store inside each drawer.

For an invisible fix, remove the top row of drawers and add dwangs/battens right under where the track travels. You need to glue+screw the battens in place and probably into the sides of the drawer cabinet too. I'd aim for a minimum height of 12-18mm and more would be better. You could have a greater depth, perhaps 50-80mm.
One could screw a metal angle extrusion underneath, if woodworking is not your area.
If the loss of height in the drawers is too great, you could re-work them to be single layer drawers with a false double-height front. That would let you use most of the drawer space for storage.

The visible solution would lay a single length of timber across the top of all the cabinets, right behind the track This will stiffen the top of the drawer cabinet to reduce that sag. Since its visible, you need to think more about finish too.
I'd be tempted to install a line of LEDs behind too, to help illuminate the contents but that's just me.

A third option is to re-panel your sliding doors in something much lighter. Your photo suggests they are faced with a wood panel, which is likely quite heavy. Consider taking them off and redoing the panel with cloth stretched in the frame, or a Shoji-style of Japanese paper panel. Clearly neither of these are structural, so the frame needs to have reinforced corners but that could end up with a lighter panel that won't cause the drawers to sag.

Last resort is to do away with the doors completely and have exposed contents. That may not suit your interior style, and does place your clothes on display all the time, but makes the room feel slightly larger.

There's a remote chance its possible to find a stouter bottom track that will resist flex more, and therefore hold the existing heavy doors, but that's going to be awkward and may require "shortening" the sliding doors - which sounds like a lot of pain.

Answer 3

It sounds like you're dealing with quite a frustrating issue with your wardrobe doors.

One possible solution could be to install some sort of door stop or latch mechanism along the track to prevent the doors from sliding too freely.

You could also explore adding additional weight to the bottom of the doors to increase friction, although this might affect their ease of sliding.

Another option could be to adjust the alignment of the tracks to ensure they're perfectly level and straight, which might help with the sliding issue.

Overall, it might require a bit of experimentation to find the best solution for your specific situation.