I have two in my present house, and have installed at least 100+ over the years.

With good hardware they work well and are not noisy.

Look over the Johnson Hardware to see what a good system looks like.

Older systems with a C-shaped trak woth the opening facing sidways can allow the door to come off the track, and if it is inthe pocket it can be a real chore to get them back on.

A C-shaped track with the slot faciong down and 3-wheel boggies works very well.

Sway is a problem even with the Johnson hardware.

The plastic guides scratch the face of the door.

A small groove in the bottom of the door and a section of angle on the floor of the pocket to control the bottom of the door works much better.

Nothing shows but the door cannot move sway more than 1/32 of an inch either way if everything is done correctly.

The house we are renting has a pocket door from the master bedroom to the master bath. It is CRAZY noisy!! I really don't like it. That said, we have a couple in the house we are building. One is the door from the mudroom to the hall, the other is from ds's bath to the playroom. I asked the builder about noise, since I am suffering with this one, and he said they have not had complaints about noise with the ones they use. Definitely check on this!

I had two in a previous home and loved them and put in three in the home we just built. No noise at all in any of them. One caveat...we put in solid core doors in our new build which are very heavy to close. While I love these doors in the rest of the house, this is one place where hollow core doors would probably have worked better.

Another consideration is the location of your light switches, towel bars, etc. Keep in mind that you can't put these on the wall that the pocket door is in, which can really limit you in a small room.

That being said, my favorite use of the pocket door is in the room with the commode where you can easily reach over and pull the door closed should hubby come wandering in to brush his teeth.

"Another consideration is the location of your light switches, towel bars, etc. Keep in mind that you can't put these on the wall that the pocket door is in, which can really limit you in a small room. "

You can put electric boxes in if you are willing ti increase the wall thickness.

Low voltage controls can also be used (with relays to then control line voltage equipment).

I just installed a pair of converging pocket doors as part of a dividing a room in two.

The hardware (Johnson) was a dream to work with. The doors move freely, but feel solid. We used two 30" french doors. The noise is minimal. Probably a tad louder than your average drawer.

In order to accommodate a switch on the wall as you enter the room, we built the wall out of 2x6s but bought kits for 2x4 walls. I fabricated some spacers to fir out the kits for the deeper opening.

The project is still on-going (ready to trim and carpet one room; haven't started the remodel of the other), so I can't give opinion on day-to-day operation.

We just finished our build, and we put in four pocket doors and I love them. We did use solid core & Johnson Hardware. They don't seem to make that much noise. We put in two 36" in our bathroom (one from the bedroom, the other into the toilet room).. these doors are wide enough that they stay partially pulled out of the wall by 4-5 inches, so they are easy to grab when you need to close them. I did put locks on three of them and the latch to pull the door out of the wall (when it's pushed flush into the wall) seems a little flimsy, put no problems so far. The other two doors are both in the laundry room and stay closed most of the time. One of those is a full view, frosted glass door. I was afraid the weight would be too heavy, but it moves very smoothly. I think as long as you use Johnson Hardware, especially with solid core doors, you won't have any problems. The little plastic guides at the bottom haven't scratched our doors yet. Good Luck!

My grandmother has one in her house that goes to bathroom. I don't know when it was installed but it was before my mother was born in 1957. It still slides. They have never had to replace the door or had to do anything with it.

I don't even notice the noise. I guess since I have using it since I was potty trained, I don't really notice if it has a noise. I love this door. The only "problem" was the locking mechanism. My brother has one in his guest bathroom and does not have any complaints. When we build, my husband and I agree that our bathrooms with access to the bedrooms will have pocket doors.

I consider myself a pocket door junkie :)
I grew up with them in my parents home, where they had three solid wood passage pocket doors (house built in 1981) and they still work wonderfully and noiselessly. Quality door and hardware are very important.
Fast forward to 1998 when we built our house. I wanted pocket doors separating kitchen/tv room from formal rooms, kids wing etc (like I grew up with) and I let my builder talk me out of it. I kick myself so often over that.
We did install one in my daughters bath. When we built, I was naieve and did not specify the type of door. I thought all doors were solid wood! Ha on me. It is a hollow core cheap door with cheap hardware. But I love it's function!
If you can use one somewhere, do it! Good Luck

"I just installed a pair of converging pocket doors as part of a dividing a room in two."

There is a kit out there that allows both doors to move when only one is pulled or pushed.

The same thing can be accomplished with some pulleys in the top of the track and 1/16 aircraft cable.

The customers I did this for loved the function.

Had this question for my builder, who uses the Johnson hardware, and this is what he said:

The trick with pocket doors is to have the trim man properly set the hardware so that it is very level. I also use steel studs on the sides so that the pocket stays extremely straight. There are guides that are set on the bottom of the door at the end of construction and these must be set perfectly.

If you do all the above and use the Johnson hardware he says they will work well for many years.