Mirrored wardrobe door repair: sticking, jumping the track, or cracked
How to work out whether the problem is the rollers, the track or the mirror itself, and what can be fixed without replacing the door.
If a mirrored sliding wardrobe door has started sticking, jumping off its track or scraping along the carpet, the fault is almost always in the hardware, not the mirror. Rollers wear out, bottom tracks get bent or clogged, and floor guides go missing. Those are usually fixable. If the mirror itself is cracked, chipped along an edge, or going black around the perimeter, the panel is what needs replacing, and a cracked mirror in a door that people slide every day is worth dealing with sooner rather than later.
What usually goes wrong
Mirrored sliding wardrobe doors are heavy. A full-height mirror panel in an aluminium frame puts a constant load on a small number of moving parts, and those parts are what fail first.
- Worn or seized rollers. The most common cause by a long way. The door gets harder to slide, then starts to drag or grind. Rollers sit at the top, the bottom, or both, depending on the system.
- A bent or dirty bottom track. Vacuum grit, hair and carpet fluff out of the channel first. A track that has been stepped on or knocked can also be squashed out of shape.
- Height adjustment out of whack. Most systems have an adjusting screw at the bottom of each door. If one side has dropped, the door will look crooked against the frame and may catch.
- A missing or broken floor guide. The small plastic piece that keeps the bottom of the door in line. Without it the door swings at the bottom and can jump out.
- The frame working loose. Aluminium frames are screwed or crimped at the corners. If a corner has opened up, the mirror is no longer properly supported.
- Black edges on the mirror. That is the silvering breaking down, usually from moisture getting behind the backing. It spreads, and it cannot be polished out.
Work out what is actually wrong
Five minutes of looking will usually tell you whether this is a hardware job or a glass job.
- Slide the door slowly and listen. Grinding or a rhythmic click points to a roller. A scraping noise low down points to the track or the guide.
- Look along the gap between the door and the frame. If the gap is wider at the top on one side, the height adjustment has dropped or a roller has collapsed.
- Clear the bottom track and try again. Grit in the channel causes a surprising number of “broken” doors.
- Check the floor guide. It sits in the middle of the opening at floor level. If it is missing or snapped, the bottom of the door will have noticeable side-to-side play.
- Run a finger along the frame corners. Any movement or a visible gap means the frame needs attention before anything else.
- Inspect the mirror edges. Chips, a crack running from an edge, or dark patches creeping in from the perimeter all mean the panel itself is at the end of its life.
If steps one to five explain the problem, you are looking at hardware, and replacement rollers and guides for common systems are usually available from a hardware store or the original supplier. If step six explains it, the panel needs to be remade.
If the mirror is cracked
A cracked mirror in a sliding door is different from a cracked mirror hanging on a wall, because the door keeps moving and the crack keeps working. Stop using that door. If the crack is long or the glass is loose in the frame, tape across it to hold the pieces and keep children and pets out of the room until it is dealt with.
Glass in and around doors is one of the areas covered by AS 1288, the Australian standard for glass in buildings, which sets out where glass has to resist human impact safety requirements. What applies to a particular wardrobe door depends on its size, position and how it is built, and a glazier can confirm what the standard requires for yours. We install safety glass that meets AS/NZS 2208 and glaze to AS 1288.
Repair the hardware, or replace the door?
A reasonable rule: if the mirror is sound, fix the hardware. If the mirror is not, replace the panel and put it back into good hardware.
Replacing rollers, guides and tracks is mechanical work and does not involve us. Where we come in is the glass itself, so if the mirror is cracked, chipped, de-silvered, or you simply want a different look, we measure, make and install mirrored and coloured sliding wardrobe doors from our own workshop in Minchinbury. The same goes for custom mirrors elsewhere in the house.
If you are handy and the frame is fine, we can also supply mirror cut to size for you to collect from the workshop and fit yourself. That is supply only, so measure carefully, and remember that a mirror panel for a full-height door is heavy and awkward for one person.
If you rent or manage the property
Wardrobe doors come up often in rentals, partly because they get heavy use and partly because it is not always obvious who pays. In NSW, a landlord has to provide and maintain the property in reasonable repair, while a tenant is responsible for the cost of damage they have caused. A roller that has worn out over ten years and a mirror that has been put through with a cricket bat are not the same thing.
In practice, report it in writing with a photo, and let the agent decide how it is handled. If you are the agent or the owner, photos and the opening measurements are enough for us to quote on a replacement panel or a new set of doors.
Frequently asked questions
Can you replace just the mirror and keep the existing frame?
Sometimes. It depends on how the frame is built and whether it comes apart without damage. Send us photos of the door, including the corners and the back, and we will tell you whether it is worth doing or whether a new panel makes more sense.
Are mirrored wardrobe doors made from safety glass?
What we install meets AS/NZS 2208 and is glazed to AS 1288. Older doors vary, particularly in houses that have not been renovated in decades, and there is no reliable way to tell by eye. If you are unsure about an existing door, a glazier can look at it and confirm what the standard requires for that opening.
My door only jumps off the track when someone slides it hard. Is that worth fixing?
Yes. It usually means the floor guide is missing or the door is sitting too high, and a door that comes off its track is a door that eventually lands on something. Both are small fixes compared with a broken mirror.
Do you cover my suburb?
We work across the Blacktown, Parramatta, Penrith and Fairfield council areas, including Blacktown, with a free measure and quote within our service area.
Get a quote for your wardrobe doors
Send through a few photos and the height and width of the opening, or call the workshop and talk it through. We will measure, make the doors in Minchinbury and install them, and the written quote you get is the price you pay.