Not sure about a fix for the pocket door, but I'll be watching this thread as we will have 8 pocket doors in our house. I hope it's an easy fix.

I have three pocket doors in our house. They are all in doorways that are not normally closed. I would not want to open/close any of them with a nearby sleeper.
One of them is on the door into the master closet from the master bath. We would never move this door at night.
My architect warned me about this characteristic of pocket doors. He also cautioned about wide use of pocket doors to replace normal doors.
It is significant additional work and expense in construction to put in a pocket door, especially in a load bearing wall. (two of my doors were in bearing walls)
You have to be careful about nailing into the pocket wall or you could impede the door.
Electric boxes also will interfere with the pocket.

I do not know if there is a solution to the noise. Most of the noise comes from the rollers moving on the track, maybe some different wheels would help.

But if one of us gets up earlier than the other or needs the bathroom in the middle of the night, the choices are to use the MB or go down a hall to the powder room. This is our only pocket door; wish our builder had told us they can be loud. I don't think this one is on the track correctly or something; it squeals also.

How quiet it is really depends on the hardware. There is bad, good, better and really good hardware. Not sure what kind you have as to what the fix would be as they vary a lot in the designs too. Could the track be dirty by any chance?

We have two pocket doors one to the laundry and one to close off the secondary bedrooms area from the great room. We have the good hardware unfortunately and it isn't as quiet as they could be, but we didn't have the choice as those were already installed. You could always replace the pocket with a regular swing door. Some framing needed on the side, a little drywall work and trim and it would be all gone. Easier than trying to switch out the track.

I'll bet we have the bad hardware. We really don't have enough room for a regular door, that's why we did it this way, trying to conserve space. That's an idea, though. Maybe somehow we could make it work.

If you find that the rollers are on track correctly, squirting some powdered graphite on the track and on the rollers bearings could help, although it might be tight trying to get the graphite in there. Worth a shot,imo.

imo, too! Thanks much.

I've heard that hollow core doors transfer noise louder from the tracks. If you find that the hardware and all is decent, you might consider replacing the hollow core w/ a solid core if your existing door is hollow.

Hmmm, the plot thickens (and maybe the door should). Thanks again. This is all very helpful.

Be careful and make sure your track can handle the weight of a solid core door before going that route.

Do you have access to an air compressor? If so maybe try blowing out the tracks first and then use the graphite. Is there any paint on or in the tracks? It is possible it can be as they often spray paint and and don't care to protect that stuff when they do.

Do a search on pocket door hardware online and see if you can find what brand yours is. It might help in seeing how it goes together to see if there is something wrong with it too.

One other option is put a curtain rod over the opening and use heavy black-out fabric so at least you can have the light on even though sound will probably be the same as a hollow-core door or even less.

I'm seriously considering the last option for our double doors to the master that has light coming through in between them. Whatever possesed me to agree to those two I don't know. I was preggo at the time so I'll blame that.

Well if a little light through a crack bothers you as it does lyfia this won't help but I'll offer it as a suggestion just in case. I did a sort of "french door" with mine. The bathroom was narrow and one of those situation where the door wouldn't open into the bathroom fully. I suppose I could have hinged it the other way but didn't want the door out in the MB. So I had the window/door store cut a regular solid door in half, put two small doorknobs on the inside so it opens like a french door. It didn't lock, but the MB had a lock and I never use locks anyway. It had the catch for the door at the top. I thought all in all it worked out pretty well. While writing this I did just now remember that my doors are all 36" so if your doors are narrower, the two door halves would look like panels. Still, they are quiet.

lyfia, thanks. I can't picture a hanging curtain that would go with our room, but that's an interesting idea. Too bad about the French doors. DH wears an eye mask at night now because we don't have our Duettes yet; would that work for you to keep out the light?

marys, another interesting idea. Our door isn't 36, so the little doors would be really narrow. I think we'll try to fix the pocket door first; we paid extra for the darn thing.

Thanks, both.

susanka,
One of our pocket door rumbles a lot when opening - but the trim carpenter boss found that the track only has two screws holding it in - he thinks that with more screws, it will be quieter. Also both of the installed pocket doors made a scraping noise while moving - it turned out that the trim carpenter nailed BOTH those doors while putting up trim. The boss pulled a nail from each but the painter discovered that there is still one more nail in one of the door cavities since it re-scratched the groove it had made when he caulked it.

Our hollow core doors in the pockets do not transmit much noise, even with these problems. My parents' 30 year old pocket doors have hollow core doors that do make a lot of noise while sliding.

I don't think it would be worth the expense of changing to solid doors. All of mine are solid wood, six panel doors.
They are still far from quiet.

Good luck.

My contractor just installed a pocket door. He solved the racket by vacuuming and cleaning it completely free of schmutz. He then sprayed a lubricant called silicone QR (I think it was QR -- I may have these letters wrong) inside the hardware. It's not the quietest door in the house, but it's MUCH quieter.

I found that interior designers love to stick these pocket doors in there, whether needed or not.

Noise is the biggest reason why we even enlarged the walls to the bathroom to accommodate a normal door.

Cheap hardware usually has cheap rollers on the units.

Johnson hardware is still the best stuff around.

Lubing a track is not going to do anything but make a mass.

They are are round wheels that are supposed to roll.

Noise from the door not staying centered in the split jamb is a problem, especially if you use the typical plastic inserted designed to center the door.

Now THEY rub on the door and damage the finish while causing noise.

A small section of aluminum angle in the bottom floor of the pocket and a mating groove in bottom of the door prevent sway that causes rubbing on the door faces.

I though about designing spring loaded rollers for this, but the small aluminum 'track' piece in a groove is so quiet it does not need anything more.
Just round the leading and trailing edges that fit in the groove.

Johnson is not the best hardware, Hawa is, for example, Hawa Junior 80/Z. Very expensive. Go with this and a solid core door and you will be set.

I have 7 sets of Hawa "very expensive" sliding door hardware. I'm not saying its junk but having the good hardware installed by a hack still makes for some noisy doors. Make sure you have them installed by someone who knows what they are doing. Level, plumb, clean. Pocket doors are impossible to fix after the fact. I had such high hopes and every single slider I have makes me sad....especially given how much I spent on them.

Well...it's a 10-year old thread, but the answer remains the same: don't use pocket doors!

Even Kirk and his successors couldn't get them to work right in the 23rd Century and onward.

Thanks to Cindy. That is an amazing video!

Yes!!

"Yes!!"

@neeciem, huh?

Has anyone tried the solution in the video Cindy attached? I’m concerned this is a short term fix; does anyone have feedback on it? Thanks!

Yes, I did it to a pocket door in 2021. It was a bicycle innertube which i cut some little loops out of. Now it was extremely hard and a matter of significant dexterity to get the loops to fit around the wheels. Not easy. You will notice there is a cut in the video where the rubber suddenly appears properly wrapped around the wheel. That's a cheat. 8 wheels what a pain in the butt! I mean, you put one rubber on, and in the process of doing the next wheel, you might accidentally push the previous rubber off. I think I let some of the previous glue dry before moving on to the next wheel.

But I succeeded in doing this. And also, I used some glue to get the inner tube rubber to stick to the wheel, 5 min epoxy as I recall. Because otherwise the inner tube loops come off too easily due to the spinning motion. Use vinyl or nitrile gloves. It did seem to make the noise better. The customer has had no complaints.

Looking at this old thread makes me wonder if it's possible to make a pocket door that sounds like a freight train to transition to sound like a passenger train...just asking for a friend...!