How to Clean Sliding Door Tracks

Sliding doors are an excellent addition to every home, especially if there’s not enough space for hinged doors.

Furthermore, sliding doors have more glass space, which provides extra daylight in your house. They are perfect for tiny areas with no room for separate windows as they create an illusion of a bigger space and let a lot of sunlight in so you can grow your plants, make a reading seat next to the glass, or hang a hammock and chill out after work. Regular commercial cleaning keeps them looking beautiful and increases their life.

Whether you decide to have sliding doors for practical or aesthetic reasons, it doesn’t matter. They always look trendy and provide a contemporary touch to your home. Having sliding doors is great, but there’s one downside that can be deal-breaking when considering adding these doors to your home.

You are probably guessing the issue: dirt in the door tracks. Piled-up dirt, dust, dead insects, and whatnot are often stuck in the sliding door tracks, and no matter how much you avoid it, it can be annoying. 

Cleaning the door tracks can be challenging, but it’s an easy task compared to cleaning the walls before painting, for example. The reason why people often avoid cleaning door tracks is that the dirt is mainly invisible. The problem occurs when the door stops sliding, when it gets stuck, or when it becomes too sticky.

When this happens, we don’t know if it’s broken, if we have to call the sliding door company, or if we need a new door. However, when realizing it’s all because of the dirt, the ‘master cleaner’ inside wakes up, and we jump to the tracks with dozens of detergents, towels, and brushes to try to make the door work again. 

Sliding Door Track Cleaning Equipment

Forget about buying expensive detergents or chemicals you see in the commercials. Cleaning sliding door tracks is not as difficult as you think. All you need is to discover a couple of tricks that will help you change your point of view and learn once and for all how to clean sliding door tracks with ease.

Forget about pricy chemicals and wallet-draining home cleaning services. All you need for cleaning the sliding door tracks are the following simple items: 

• vacuum cleaner (handheld or regular) 
• baking soda 
• hydrogen peroxide 
• paper towels or clean cloths 

How to Clean Sliding Door Tracks

The first thing to do is vacuum the loose dirt with the handheld vacuum cleaner. If you only have a regular vacuum cleaner, use the hose attachment. After removing the debris from the tracks, it’s time to get into the deep cleaning. 

Sprinkle baking soda in the sliding door track and then pour hydrogen peroxide on top and let it sit for 10 minutes. The chemical reaction between these two compounds will create foam that will lift all the remaining dirt from the track. 

When you see this happening, grab some paper towels or clean cloths and collect the foam with all the dirt inside. The combination of baking soda and hydrogen peroxide eliminates even the most stubborn dirt from the track that you can’t even see. 

After you finish the wiping, rinse the tracks with clean water to remove the leftover residue and dry them with a clean cloth. The entire process shouldn’t take you more than 20-30 minutes. 

Consider repeating this cleaning procedure right away when your door gets stuck or feels rough when sliding. 

How to Deep Clean Sliding Door Tracks 

It’s not like the previous cleaning process isn’t good enough, but here we want to share a deep cleaning sliding door track tip for people who’ve been avoiding this task for too long.  

Some sliding doors are victims of excessive dirt accumulation. In these cases, the most reasonable solution is to remove the door from the tracks. By doing so, you will get visibility of everything that’s preventing your door from sliding.

You can also use a vacuum to remove the dirt. Then, wash the tracks with a solution of warm water and vinegar. It will help remove the dirt and disinfect the door tracks.

Cleaning the track rollers is also a must in this situation because you can’t even imagine how dirty they get. Deep cleaning of sliding door tracks will make the door work like new, and you’ll have longer-lasting effects. 

Extra Tip

If by any chance you notice a greasy stain in your sliding door track and you can’t remove it by just wiping it, then grab an old toothbrush and scrub it with it.

Always keep your old toothbrushes in your cleaning supply cabinet. They have a wide range of uses around the household, especially for cleaning hard-to-reach areas like narrow door tracks. 

Lubricating Sliding Door Racks 

Sliding doors and windows experts recommend once-a-month lubrication of the tracks to provide flawless movement of your doors. If you already have this type of door at your home, then you might want to consider buying silicone lubricant for metal sliding doors and apply it once in a while to avoid roughness. Do this often, especially if you live in areas with high humidity or close to the ocean. 

What about Wooden Sliding Doors? 

All the tips that we shared with you so far refer to metal sliding doors, which are the most common. If you have a sliding door at your home, it’s probably a metal one. 

However, in some countries, people produce wooden sliding doors.

These racks are not as deep as the metal ones, so the cleaning mainly consists of vacuuming and dry wiping. 

The maintenance of wooden sliding doors depends on maintaining the wood itself, as the material is prone to rotting, mould, and termite attacks. 

Final Word 

As you can read, cleaning sliding door tracks is nothing from a different planet, and it doesn’t require expensive detergents or special cleaning services. 

You can do the entire process by yourself, using affordable and everyday items from your home. 

No matter how tricky this chore may seem, it will only take you half an hour tops, and you won’t have to worry about sticky or malfunctioning sliding doors even again. 

Good luck!

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