Here they are.

Courtesy of a DIY site, these are very easy to understand, and should help you finish the wiring without a hitch.

Installing garages and garage doors are quite the in-thing today, and many people prefer to do that. While that is fine with normal garage doors and openers, for the more advanced ones you will anyway need to call in the experts.

We wrote an article on installing a garage door opener a couple of days ago, but did not mention the wiring part of it in detail. So we got a request from a home owner asking if we could elucidate on that. So this one is for you, Henry. (and for all those home owners who are installing their own garage door openers too)

• First open and close the garage door manually to see if everything is working fine. If there is some wrong positioning during the installation of the garage door opener, it will obstruct the door from opening and closing smoothly. Once you notice that it is moving fine, we can move on.
• Look for the linkage assembly – the one which consists of the straight bar link, the L shaped link, and the door bracket – and attach the assembly to the traveler.
• Pull the disconnect cord to break away the door from the opener.
• See that the door bracket is centered on the door; and remove the original lock from the door.
• Mount the push button control on the garage wall at a convenient height for everyone in the family, and run the wire up along the wall and into the ceiling. Connect it to the power unit on the roof and use electrical staples so that the wire does not move; but see that you don’t staple through the wires!
• Refer to the manual of the garage door opener and see if you have the right kind of wiring done on this. Each garage door opener will have a different kind of wiring and hence you will need to go through that so you don’t make a mistake.
• Turn off power in the breaker box and install an electrical outlet near the ceiling of the garage door so you don’t need to run wires all around. For the electrical outlet, you can call your local electrician and he’ll do it in a few minutes. Make sure that the outlet is grounded properly.
• Connect the door with the opener once more, and adjust the safety reverse system with the height you want it to reverse from. For this too, you can refer to your user manual.
• See whether the garage door opener has a provision for an electric eye – which is mandatory by federal law today. If yes, install it at a height suitable so that kids, pets, and other obstructions don’t get stuck in a closing garage door.
• Operate the garage door using the door opener switch you installed on the wall, and you should see the door rising and closing smoothly. Else tweak it around a bit till you are happy with the movement.
• If you have a wireless controller unit also, in the earlier step of connecting the wire to the overhead unit, also connect the radio receiver to it, and plug it into the circuit grid. The rest of the connections can be done as usual. With that, your garage door should also be operable with the radio receiver. Check for the right frequency and the distance it is catching from. Here is an article we wrote earlier about programming your garage door opener remote.

Like we said earlier, there is an increasing percentage of do-it-yourself kind of home owners, and they all prefer to work around their homes on weekends. If you are not the kind, you can just call in a local garage door expert, and he will finish the wiring in an hour or so. If you buy a garage door opener that comes with a DIY kit, it will have the necessary wirings and other paraphernalia you will require to wire it properly, and will also come with a diagrammatic manual which you can just follow.

What we will do next is to bring to you a series of simple diagrams for wiring your garage door. That should be up in a day or two. Stay tuned.

Here are some easy steps in which the process can be completed.

• Take a tape measure and figure out which is the center of your garage door. Since most garage door openers go onto the center of the door, this will make your installation perfect. At the halfway point, draw a line so you can affix the drawbar at that point.
• Open your garage door and mark the highest point of its travel. When installed, the opener rail should be higher than the highest point of your garage door’s travel point so it won’t strike it.
• At the line you drew, check whether there is enough support for the garage door opener. If no, fix a wooden plank with screws, and that plank will act as a support structure.
• Take the motor unit of your garage door and attach it to the rail. This is to be done on the floor of the garage – obviously! For this, your garage door opener manual will come in handy. Most openers come with a rail bracket, and it should not be too difficult for you to install it securely to the rail.
• Raise the rail with the motor unit and fasten it to the garage. For this, there are metal brackets which come in the garage door opener kit, and you can use them. Depending on the kind of a garage door and garage finishing you have, you can read the kind of installation you need to do (from the manual), and do it. For instance, if your garage door ceiling is already finished, you need to put up a wooden plank for support and then connect the railing and the motor unit to the roof of the garage. Your door opener manual will also have diagrams of how you can install the garage door opener if your door is horizontal or vertically opening.
• Attach the rail carriage to the drawbar and move it to the ‘closed’ position. Drill screw holes in your garage door at that point, and fasten the drawbar to the door using those screw holes you just drilled.
• Adjust the drive chain and the lead screw, and check for the wiring arrangement that your manual shows you. Especially see the positions of the black and the white wires and see that they lead to the correct screws.
• If you have a wireless garage door opener, you will now need to install a radio receiver. Else, you will install a manual push button. Some garage doors also give the provision of installing an optional key switch.
• Connect the drive assembly into an extension cord and plug it in properly.
• Activate the manual push button and see whether your garage door is opening normally. Else, make the necessary adjustments.
• Operate your garage door now with the wireless radio receiver and see how far it is catching. If needed, you can tweak that too. Here is an earlier article we wrote about Programming your Garage Door remote.
• Once you feel that everything is fine and satisfactory, disconnect the extension cord and plug in the drive assembly cord to its permanent outlet.
• Connect an overhead garage light socket and connect the drive assembly cord through it, so that the bulb activates automatically when you open or close the garage door.
• That’s it!

As you see, it is not too difficult; but it is not too easy either!

A garage door opener is one of the most important gadgets at home, and it makes life quite easy when installed properly. Today, there are multiple options in the kinds of garage doors that are available, and if needed, you can call in a garage door expert to help you with the installation. Some of the most reputed garage door openers even offer free installation when you buy them, and then you don’t need to worry about the installation process!

The most used part of your garage door is a Torsion Spring, and more often than not, the problem your garage door is facing starts from the torsion spring. With wear and tear, the tension in the spring becomes low and the door gets sagging. Each time that happens, your door could become clunky in its movement, and you need to manually assist the opener in moving the door upwards. Apart from that, there are a few more things which could cause your garage door to act troubled. Here are a few of the easiest things you can do.

• The metal tracks inside the garage are another of the most frequently damaged pieces in the door, and if you use your garage door very often, they are more likely to be damaged. Replacing just the tracks will do equally well, and you can just tighten the screws in the tracks of the garage door. Tightening them will give your door better grip and it’ll move normally. Sometimes you will also need to pound the tracks with a wooden block or a rubber mallet if you see any dents in them. Only if you see that the tracks are damaged badly, should you look to replace them entirely.
• Check the springs of the garage door. Like we mentioned earlier, the springs are the most important part of your garage door, and you will need to make sure that they are well maintained. But the challenge is that it could be quite dangerous for you to try and repair the springs on your own. Owing to the high tension the springs hold in them, you could injure yourself in case of a mishap. But basically, you can check for the notch in which the spring is held. If the tension for the door is not enough, you could move it up to the next notch, and that’ll exert the necessary pressure on the garage door. However, if there is just one torsion spring that your door has, do not try and repair it yourself. Call a professional garage door repair company and they’ll do it for you professionally.
• For the more serious problems, you could consider replacing the garage door opener (if your garage door has one installed). The life of a garage door opener depends on the usage of the door, and the greater the usage, the sooner the opener will wear out. Sometimes you can get the door opener serviced, but other times you will just need to replace it. If you are the do-it-yourself kind of a person, you can buy a ready made garage door opener kit, go through the manuals and install the garage door yourself. However, if you are not, it would be better to ask a professional company to come and do the installation for you. Depending on the model of the garage door opener you are buying, you could even get free installations.
• Keep your garage door in a good condition. This is by far the sanest piece of advice you can get. Instead of using your garage door aggressively and worrying about it only when things go wrong, it would make sense to service it once in a while. This servicing, you can do yourself, and it won’t cost you a bomb. Using normal stuff lying around in your garage, you can maintain your garage door springs, tracks, the opener, and the door itself, so that it will serve you for a good many years to come.

These are some of the simplest expert advice when it comes to garage doors. More often than not, the problem in your garage door is caused by one of these things, and is not as serious as you think. If one of these does not solve the problem, just get one of the experts to come and take a look. They’ll tell you the right thing to do.

So here is a large image of the installation of a glass garage door, so that you can check out whether you’d like to have them installed at home. We’ll also bring you an article on Glass garage doors in a couple of days – stay tuned.

The door you see here is being installed with glass and aluminum.

And this is how it’ll look once installed (almost!)

Pics Credit – Internet

The turning point was Hurricane Andrew of 1992, which a lot of us would still remember with fear. Entire localities were uprooted and displaced in the devastation of the hurricane, and that was primarily because of the winds that blew at over 150 mph. But the biggest consistent destruction across the region was with entire garage doors being blown to bits. The average garage door is 250-300 sq feet, and a hole of that size within your home is serious destruction! No other part of the house leaves us so vulnerable. So the building code was changed in the areas prone to hurricanes, and it was made mandatory for the garage doors to be resistant to winds of up to 150 mph – which is a level 4 storm.

Some of the basic changes done by garage door manufacturers are

• Reinforcement of the garage door with metal re-bars from the inside, so that there is an added layer of strength to the doors
• Garage doors were tested in a wind tunnel testing lab with a simulated environment of a real storm to check for durability
• Air guns were used to fire pellets and larger objects – of up to 2 x 4s to simulate flying objects and debris in a storm and the garage door was checked for strength
• A better gauge of tracks and track brackets so that the heavy door does not fly out in high winds
• And a few more fundamental changes we’ll talk about in a bit.

The first change is what we’ve put up in the display picture above – of metal bars reinforcing the insides of a garage door. As you can see from the image above, these are not ordinary metal bars but highly reinforced ones which lend a lot of support to the garage doors. The crisscross design of the bars ensures that the whole garage gets steady support and does not bend in at some weak point. After the introduction of the code, the bars were the first to be used, but even after their usage, garage doors were susceptible to damage as the brackets and tracks in use by the doors were not good enough to hold the heavy bars in place, and when the winds came up, whole doors were stripped out and the flew away. So the next change that came in was the reinforcing of the tracks and brackets which held the garage doors in place. Most commonly, there are 14 gauge tracking systems and heavy grade brackets for the tracks that are used in garage doors which are specially fit for storm resistance.

Since we are talking about the new building code, we should also tell you that the code has different rules in different parts of the country. In the in-states, the code is not really all that strict as storms by themselves are quite rare, and even if they come up, they are not of the intensity as they come in the other areas of the country. The strongest storms come up in Miami, Florida, and it is necessary that the doors be capable of withstanding gales of 150 mph or more. So if you are living in those areas susceptible to storms, you’d better have storm garage doors which are good for those gales.

And it is not necessary that you get a new garage door just because your old door is not capable of handling those storms. Today, there are ways in which the existing garage door can be retrofit into making it into a storm proof door. There are ready made retro fit kits available today which can be used directly on an existing garage door – including those made of wood; and it hardly takes an hour to make the door strong enough to hold out on gales of up to 180 mph! The best part is that they can be done by the garage owner himself – provided he is the do-it-yourself type. Else, there can be a garage door expert called in.

Finally, it is necessary that you have a storm garage door if you live in an area that is prone to hurricanes; it is not all that expensive either!

Thanks to DIY Clinic for the video.

This one is in three parts, and once you are done with this part, you will be shown the remaining two as related videos anyway. So did not put up three videos here.

After asking the experts, we realized that this one was by far the most detailed and the best of the lot – in terms of changing Torsion Springs of garage doors. So here it is!

• Torsion Springs – Torsion springs are the most important part of a garage door – especially if there is an automatic garage door opener installed. These are the springs which lend support to the automatic opener. In fact, taking you into the workings of a garage door, it is not the automatic opener motor which is really opening the garage door. The half HP motor is no way near being enough to hoist the heavy garage doors against gravity! However, the torsion springs have a lot of pent up tension by virtue of being kept coiled. This tension is slowly released by the lateral movement of the door opener, and this is what moves the garage door towards opening. Depending on the kind of garage door you have at home, you will have a different design of this technology, but the basics remain the same. If your door opens upwards, the springs and the opener will be on the roof and the springs will be directed downwards, pulling up when the tension is relieved. Similarly, if you have a sideways opening garage door, the torsion springs will point to the sides, and will move sideways when the automatic door opener gives them gap to move. Got the picture?
• Extension Springs – These are the other kind of springs in use by the garage doors of today, and have been around for a long time now. Even before the days of automatic garage door openers, we have had extension springs mounted on the sides of the doors. These doors extend to close the door and compress to open them. Like we mentioned, these are mounted sideways along the door, and contribute to the smooth opening and closing of the garage door. If these springs were not there, the door would just fall flat when the automatic door opener gives way. Similarly, while opening, there would be need for support of the door and this is lent by the extension springs. Else the door won’t open!

There is a picture of a detailed garage door installation that we put up somewhere on this blog. Here is the link to that, and you can take a look first hand at the picture and see which springs we are talking about there.

While both these springs come with your garage door, there might be a need to overhaul them once in a while – especially if you have a garage which has a very heavy usage. Normally, the torsion springs come wound and need to be installed straight from the package while the extension springs need to be stretched by moving the garage door slowly, in order for it to catch on to it’s grooves. As you open and close your garage door very often, the extension springs are subject to a lot of wear and tear, and would need to be replaced. You will know when that needs to be done by the change in the movement of the garage door. What used to be a single fluid movement will now become choppy, and that means your extension springs need to be changed.

Coming back to what we were talking about in the beginning of this article, it is quite dangerous to change the springs yourself – especially the overhead torsion spring. This spring is loaded with several hundred pounds of pressure, and one wrong movement can have you flat against the wall – even losing a part or two! Though you are quite the DIY dad at home, don’t risk doing that. Just for that part, you can ask a garage door expert to come in and finish the installation or repair for you. The rest of the repair and installations you can do yourself – just don’t touch the torsion springs!

We’ll bring to you a video of changing a garage door shortly. Stay tuned.

Though the basic system is the same, there might be any number of complications in the installation of different kinds of garage doors, and that is probably why eHow has rated the difficulty of installing your own garage door as ‘Challenging’. But if that would not have been challenging, we would probably not be interested in installing it, right?

Here is an easy way to get you working on your own garage door installation. Read through these steps carefully.

• Take the first garage door panel section and attach weather stripping to it. once that is done, you can place the panel in the garage doorway
• Take the hinges which come along with your installation kit and attach them to the top edge of the panel
• Take all the tracks which come with your Garage door kit and put them together
• Take the brackets and rollers onto the garage door panel which you have already kept ready
• Take the rollers on the garage door and align them with the vertical tracks you have installed already. Do the same on the other side too and see that the door fits well into the tracks
• Take the second garage door panel and hammer rollers onto it. This panel goes above the panel you have already installed, and make sure to align it with the vertical tracks
• Fasten the hinges by using a screwdriver tipped power drill. If you don’t have one, you can get one from your local carpenter – you don’t need to buy it! Once you affix the hinges between the doors, just see that they are properly aligned with the vertical tracks
• Pick up the third panel of the garage door and affix it to the top of the door, i.e. to the second panel to fill the gap on top of the door. The process is the same as above
• Since you’ve already put the vertical tracks in place, now put the curved track on one side, screw it on, put up the horizontal track on the upper side of the roller tracks of the garage door, and then fix the other curved track
• Fix them strongly with screws and ensure stability
• You will have a track hanger in the box that came with the garage door. Pick out a length suitable to your garage door, and affix the track hanger into the wall above the horizontal track (the one on the upper side of your garage door). You can also choose to fix the track hanger beside the horizontal track. The important thing is that it should lend apt support
• Pick up the remaining panels of your garage door and fix them using screws and a drill bit with a screwdriver head
• Check the panels for proper installation, and also check the vertical and horizontal tracks for stability
• Check the rollers in the tracks on the horizontal side, as that is where most pressure will be
• Your garage door is done!

As you see, it is not very complex, but is not easy either. The complications begin when you have an automatic garage door opener. Or it is even more complex with there is a heavy torsion spring system that needs to be installed. These springs are quite dangerous and there have been several cases where the home owners have been injured and even maimed by the pressure the springs exert.

If you have a complex garage door that is to be installed, it would make perfect sense to get the help of a professional garage door expert. Or you can get them to come and install the torsion system and the garage door opener once you are done with installing your own garage door.

Try installing your own garage door the next time around, but take proper precautions.

Even today, on eBay and other such marketplaces, there is great demand for carriage house garage doors which are authentic and are doors which were genuinely used to house horse carriages. The older the better in terms of demand. Once in a while, there are the really old carriage house doors which come up for sale, and the ones which are in a good condition get sold for quite a handsome sum!

Anyway, lets not get carried away with the history. Basically, carriage house garage doors of today are not just the weak wooden ones any more. There are so many kinds of wood available today, that the good garage door experts will bring to you a huge variety. Based on the location of your home – like if it is close to the coast, you will need to choose a wood variant that suits the climate. Since the material used in the construction of the garage door is wood, there can be any amount of decoration that can be done on the door. There are wooden carriage house garage doors which have been hand crafted, and though they are significantly expensive than the normal ones, they are also worth a million in looks!

Like we were mentioning, the modern carriage house garage doors come with all the modern technologies that a metal garage door would come with, and that too with the brilliant look of wood. Modern wooden doors come with proper curing and different kinds of treatments, so that they don’t get spoilt with long use.

One of the most exceptional kinds of carriage house garage doors of the recent times are the ones which roll up onto themselves into the roof; giving normal overhead garage doors a serious run for their customers! Who would have imagined that wood also can go up into the roof and that too folding just like metal! Innovators of the recent times are just unbelievable!

Some of the most oft used materials for carriage house garage doors are Hemlock or Fir. Since they come with a stronger frame, the support they lend to the automatic openers is quite solid. If you want to go in for a painted wooden door or something which looks designer, the finish needs to be plywood, and make sure that you paste it real well, so the edges don’t look obtrusive. There is also an option to wire brush the door, so that it straight away gets installed looking weathered! Another marvel of modern technology!!

If the garage you have is insulated, you will need the wooden garage door you are installing to have a better core – preferably of EPS or Polysterene insulation, so that the temperature is maintained just fine. If you have windows along the garage, make sure that you insulate them also.

Finally, there are different styles of garage doors opening in the carriage house model. While some simply follow tradition and swing outwards, there are others which split up among themselves or like we said – even fold upwards. The necessity for these innovations was simply because people did not have the kind of space needed for the old kind of carriage house garage doors. But people wanted to have the grace and style of the carriage house doors, and inventors obliged by creating doors which could be accommodated in less space.

If your garage door expert is selling you a carriage house garage door which he says has come from an ancient house, ask him for certification. Even if it is reclaimed, he should have some kind of proof proving it’s authenticity.

Whatever said and done, one thing is for sure – nothing beats the look of a carriage house garage door. Check them out.

For instance, there is an abundance of Chinese garage doors in the market today, and they all say that the real value for money is possible only from these products. Then there are the wooden doors which have come out of either South America or somewhere in South East Asia. They say that the real beauty of garage doors is only possible with that wood. Then we have the home grown companies which make wonderful garage doors out of metal and fiber, and the general opinion is that these are best suited to our environment.

In the USA, there are some great companies which manufacture a wide range of garage doors, and companies like Genie and Chamberlain joust with the rest of the makers for the title of the ‘best garage doors’.

In reality, however, there is no such thing as a best garage door. With the quality checks we have in place in the American scenario, any company which makes garage doors will have to ensure that the quality standards are to be kept up, and most of the good companies would ensure that the necessary quality checks are in place. So what do we mean by the best garage doors?

In reality, when someone searches for a term like ‘best garage doors’, what he is actually searching for is for doors which suit his set of requirements. So what would  be wise is to jot down the expectations you have out of your garage door, and then fine tune that search based on the available models. For instance, if there is a lot of wood you’ve used on the facade of your home, you will want to have a garage that suits the home you’ve built so lovingly. So you won’t go in for a garage door which is made of some metal or a grey shade of fiber. A wooden garage door that suits the style of architecture you’ve used in your home would be the best garage door for you at this time. Similarly, if you are looking for a garage door to be installed on an office, you wouldn’t normally go in for a wooden door. Since most of the offices are anyway made of chrome and glass, a garage that fits the aesthetics there would be perfectly suited, and that will be the best garage door at that time.

If you are searching for a garage door and have stumbled on to this page, you will agree with us when we say that most of the customers don’t really know what they want. Too many people have been duped by the architects into spending a bomb on a garage door which doesn’t gel well with the decor, or something which looks nice but is not what the home really needs. If you don’t need a garage door that folds up into the roof automatically, why go for it and spend a few hundred dollars extra? If you have the necessary space, it will make sense to install a carriage door style garage door – if you like the look, that is. Makes sense?

So when you look for the best garage door, you need to understand that what is best for you will not be the best for your neighbor. Understanding your requirements in advance will not only make the process faster and easier, but will save a bunch of money for you since you don’t need to make modifications later on.

One good way of doing that research is by going online and reading the reviews of the different kinds of garage doors from customers directly. You are bound to find some customer who had the exact same needs you have, and you can check on what he found. Or you can call an expert in garage doors on 1-888-666-2050 and ask for advice.

1. To prevent water and other external elements from entering the house / garage / office.

2. To keep the conditioned air – whether hot or cold – inside, so that there is no power and effort wasted.

There are two ways in which the first step can be accomplished – either by completely putting a series of rubber stoppers in place, or by routing that water into a separate trough into which that water can be collected so it can be used for the garden or for some other use.

In several states, there is a custom code enforcement that makes it mandatory for factories to weather strip doors and then sell them. In some other regions, there is a code that is to be followed while weather stripping doors so that they adhere to a uniform code of rules. The commonest place where you find weather stripping is on automobiles; and there is a lot of beading that will go into weather proofing your car. So you can imagine how much more it will take for your garage.

A lot of people prefer to weather proof their garages by themselves, and if you are among them, here is a simple series of instructions which you’ll find handy.

• Measure the height and width of your garage door. Then buy weather stripping material from your local Depot or hardware store. It is recommended that you get an additional 5’ of material. Also buy a vinyl seal for the top and for the sides of the garage door.
• If your weather proofing material comes with nails, it’s fine. Else, roofing nails should be good enough. Buy them too. Some variants of weather stripping even come with self-adhesive.
• First remove all the weather stripping that is already present on your garage door. To remove that, a simple pry bar or something else that is sharp and curved should do. But be careful so you don’t damage the material of the door and dent / scratch it. If you don’t have weather stripping yet on your garage door, you can straight away get started from the next step – obviously!
• Most of the people don’t remove the nails and staples which hold the stripping in place. While it is not wrong to put up a new beading on top of these nails, garage experts recommend that you remove them all and start afresh. You can use nail removers to do the deed.
• Scrape away all the remains of the adhesive used to put up the weather stripping in place with a putty knife or a scraper. If your door frame has old paint behind the adhesive, remove that as well.
• Position the garage door at a convenient height and put in a stopper if you don’t have an automatic opener installed.
• Start with the bottom stripping, and affix one end to the door. Place a nail roughly every 6” and cut off what stripping is left off once you are done with the bottom of the door.
• Close the door, and finish the sides and the top in the same manner.
• Affix the corners with glue and paste them on to each other. This will seal off any remaining spaces at the end of the stripping on each side. Since the pieces are mostly flat, you won’t need to worry about them looking obtrusive.

Experts recommend that you can just affix the vinyl garage seal to the top and the sides of the garage door, and use the weather stripping only for the bottom, as that is where you need the most amount of proofing. It is also the bottom where gaps usually are left over, and that is what you want to avoid. So putting in nails at shorter distance intervals could be useful. The bottom strip is usually thicker than the vinyl seal.

If you are not the do-it-yourself garage mechanic, you can get an expert to come in and do it for you. It is not expensive anyway. But if you have an insulated garage, it is mandatory that you put up weather stripping on garage doors without fail.

All rights of the video belong to the publisher.

If you are a garage doors enthusiast, you would probably know that the first doors were used on carriage garages, and that the same garages were converted for use of the first motor cars invented at the turn of the last century. Hence the name Carriage doors still is in use.

Today, there are different kinds of wooden doors in use all around the world as garage doors, and not all of them are in the same model of the carriage doors. While some look and work just like the metal doors, there are some wooden garage doors which even roll up like the ordinary metal garage doors! The marvels of technology!

The number one reason why wooden garage doors are so preferred is because they age very well. Unlike other materials which lose their sheen with time, these become better and look more attractive as they age, and the rugged look is what wood is so famous for! Over a period of time, garage doors get nicked and dented, and on metal or vinyl, these look like aberrations. However, on wood, they look real cool; and we know of garage owners who wontedly nick their wooden garage doors so that they look nice! It is like rubbing in new running shoes to make them look aged; as new running shoes are never worn by serious runners. Similarly, a garage door should look a bit beaten and worn, and for that, wood is the right choice. If you have a metal garage door, and if you have dented it by mistake, you would probably have run to get your garage door repair company and to remove the dents. If the same happens on wood and if a small chunk flies out, you won’t do anything to it – actually, you’ve just made your garage door look better!

Since we are talking about both sides of the coin – whether wooden garage doors are in or not, we should also tell you the primary reason why people don’t get to install these doors in spite of all the beauty they lend to the garage. That is because a lot of town homes today don’t have the necessary space to open doors outwards, and wooden doors have to open outwards – much like the carriage door style of the last century. A vinyl door would just roll up onto itself and hide into the roof of the garage, and that is so very convenient as it does not need additional space. Other designs like where the door folds into half and splits to the side, or where it just goes onto the roof by curving upwards are also popular for precisely that reason – they do not take up additional space.

Even today, most of the manual doors on garages are made of wood. After the advent of automatic garage door openers a couple of decades ago; and especially after they became real popular in the last few years, home owners who were installing automatic garage doors shifted away from the wooden doors and patronized the other materials. However, garage door opener companies invented automatic openers which could be fixed onto the wooden doors of the earlier era also. All it needed was a bit of tweaking around and a few sliders to be connected to the shaft and the door opener motor. On pressing the remote, the door swings outwards just like you would have done manually, and the good thing is that the technology is not expensive at all!

One of the best designs on wooden garage doors is where the door splits into half and then opens outwards. This has specially been invented for those homes which don’t have a lot of space, but are fond of the wooden garage door culture. There are several other automatic models also available in wood, and you can ask your garage door expert to make suggestions.

The final word is that wooden garage doors are absolutely in, and they will be here for a long long time! The question is for consumers to evaluate the pros and cons, and see how they can use wood in their garage doors.

Pic Credit – Internet

Well, the first thing that people look for in a garage door is sturdiness. You need to find a garage door that won’t be easily dented or ruined. This often depends on the type of material your garage door is made out of. Aluminum, for example, dents quite easily. However, steel does not have the same weakness. The sturdiness of your garage door determines its ability to keep people and other elements out of your garage and your home.

You should also think about the adaptability of the garage door. You need to learn how quickly you may be able to storm proof it, or at least install some added safety features. You might also want to take a close look at the garage door and see whether it can easily be connected to an opener.

Another thing that you need to look for in a garage door is a good design. When picking a garage door design, always see it as a part of the whole house or the garage. Remember that although the garage door offers a good opportunity to use your creativity, it simply wouldn’t do to have that garage door clash with the rest of the house. If you don’t give importance to the design of the garage door, you might just end up ruining the look of your entire home. Get a decorator to help you decide the appropriate look of the garage door.

You really need to remember that the differences between different garage door types are what empower you to select the perfect door that fits your needs. Without these differences, you would not be able to pick the right door for your conditions. When you pick a garage door, you should also make sure that the material you pick will be able to stand the test of time while providing you with the price you desire.

Let’s talk about prices. You obviously need to make sure that you budget your money properly in purchasing a great garage door. You need to take account the fact that you will have a limited budget and that you might need to spend on more than just the door itself. However, you should not be so skimpy on your budget. You need to learn when to gauge the actual value of an object. Make sure that when you purchase a new garage door, it’ll be something that will last you for a long time indeed.

You create the definition of the best. This is because you have very specific wants and needs that only one product may provide for. In order to buy the best, you need to take these specific criteria in mind. This would always help you make sure that you are satisfied with whatever product you get. 

Another secret is that the value of a garage door is rarely reflected in its price. You should realize by know that pricing schemes are oft-used weapons in the marketing arsenal of any garage door company. The price of a product should not be used to pre-judge its quality. There are several pricing schemes used by companies in order to make the product more appealing. These pricing schemes often take advantage of you preconceptions regarding the quality of a product. Take the price as an indicator of whether or not you may be able to afford a specific garage door, but don’t attempt to look beyond it.

An important secret you should know is that material counts. There is no single “best” material to be used for garage doors.  If there was a single best material for garage doors, then companies would undoubtedly be making garage doors out of only that material. However, you have to realize that

Each material works best under different conditions and each material often fills very specific requirements of the customer.

Choosing the best residential garage door is just as much about the form as it is about the function. Remember that, as a residential garage door, you need to think about appearances and just how the look of that door will complete the look of your home. When you consult a garage door service for this, you should also take the advice of a decorator. Remember that the object of a garage door company is to sell, but you need a service that will help you determine what exactly you need to buy to achieve the look you desire.  

These are some of the secrets that garage door services try to keep from people who just want to look for the best residential doors. Knowing these secret, you might just find that picking the right door would be easier.

You need to realize that economizing your money is all about balance. You can’t expect to scrimp on a new garage door and still get the best product possible. Try to redefine the meaning of the word cheap. You shouldn’t just look at the price of a new garage door, but also its quality. What this means is that you should always be looking at how much value you’ll be getting for your money instead of just at how much money you have to spend.

Scrimping on your garage door budget will only lead you to getting an inferior product. What harm will this do to you? Well, it will simply mean that you’ll be getting a garage door that may not live up to your standards. This means the garage door company you bought that door from may manufacture products that won’t stand the test of time. You’ll have to end up replacing or repairing your garage door a lot more frequently than you would be if you had bought a high-end garage door. As you might realize, purchasing a new garage door frequently is a task that’s not very good for your wallet. 

Think about it: a good quality garage door will last at least three times as long as a cheap door, but would only cost about 50% more.  This means you will actually be getting a cheaper garage door based on the actual value you’re getting for your money. Basically, scrimping on your budget for a new garage door isn’t necessarily equal to saving your money. Over time, the damage to a cheap garage door will cost you more in repairs than the additional cost you would have had to spend on a good and solid garage door.

Another way that scrimping on your garage door can cause more harm than good is the fact that it lulls you into a false sense of security. Since you just bought the new garage door, you might think that you won’t have to spend a lot of money on it anymore. This can be dangerous, since cheap garage doors often do not live up to the standards that you may expect of them. This false sense of security leaves you unprepared and with no idea when you’ll need to actually replace the doors.

1) Check the roof – you need to get on up there and check if the roof is sound or if there are any spots that may need repairs or renovations. Having a good roof will help you prevent moisture from entering the garage and dripping onto your valuables. After all, the garage is supposed to be a shelter and without a proper roof, you might as well not have a garage at all. Make sure that you inspect the roof carefully and at least plug up any holes that you may find. Check for rot in order to make sure that your roof will be able to withstand the battering of a storm.

2) Check the door – you need to make sure that the garage door is able to stand the fury of any storm. This will go a long way in helping maintain the structural integrity of your garage during a storm. Basically, you first need to make sure that the material you use for your garage door isn’t something that’s easily crumpled or affected by the elements. This usually means steel, although wood has also shown good resistance to weathering. If you have a bad garage door, you might want to think about getting a new one before the storm season comes.

The next thing you need to do would be to add bracing to your garage door. A garage door company can do this for you or you can choose to buy one of the bracing kits available in the market today. Remember that the bracing kit you pick needs to be able to reinforce your door thoroughly. This means every panel of the garage door needs to be braced properly.

Another thing you should do in order to ensure the security of your garage door in a storm would be to reinforce the hinges. Make sure that the garage door won’t fall off its hinges when the wind blows on it. Check the hinges for rust and have a garage door service install more.

3) Check the walls – make sure that your walls are sturdy enough to remain sound when the storm comes. You should also take note if they allow any moisture inside the garage or if they insulate enough to keep heat in.

There are certain factors that you need to look into in order to find out whether or not you need to replace your garage door. Here are some of them:

1) Wear and Tear – the main reason why you might want to replace your garage door is the amount of damage it has sustained through regular use. Wear and tear refers to the damage brought about by the elements working on the garage door material as time goes by. These also include damages caused by incidents or accidents that are not really supposed to be part of a garage door’s normal operation. Inspecting for wear and tear, in this case, requires you to look at the physical appearance of the door itself. You need to check if the door is still salvageable or if you need to buy a new one. 

2) Usability – although wear and tear also affects the usability of a garage door, it is often mostly concerned with the visual. Function is something that you need to keep a close eye on. You need to make sure that the garage door you have still works well both as a barrier to protect your garage and as an entry point. This means the garage door should open and close properly as you want it to. Take a close look at the mechanism of the garage door opener and check if the action is still smooth. An important word of advice: if you find that repair is the best answer, you should just contact a garage door service. This is simply because certain parts, such as the garage door springs can be dangerous if tinkered with without the proper knowledge.

3) Budget – your budgetary concerns also often constitute a huge part of your decision whether or not to replace your garage door. Although regular maintenance of a garage door is often cheaper than buying a new one, you have to learn where and when to draw the line. The time simply comes when replacing the door would be more practical, as repairs will only extend its life by a bit more time and that the expense of repairing the garage door cannot be justified by that amount of time.

1) Burglars – it is easily understandable why the garage can be a very tempting target to a burglar. First of all, the garage is usually easily accessible from the street. This means a burglar will have no trouble locating it and this makes breaking in essentially simpler. It also makes for an easy escape. Another thing that would attract thieves to your garage is the fact that it does often contain some valuables. A lot of people use their garages as storage or work areas. This means you may have some items lying around which you might take for granted but which may actually be pretty valuable. And, of course, there’s your car. Without the proper protection of a good garage door service, you might just wake up one day to find your vehicle gone.

Another attraction for burglars is the fact that the garage often provides privacy away from the main house.  Think about it: when you are awake and inside the house, you usually have no idea what’s going on in your garage, right? How much more would you be aware if you are asleep in the middle of the night? It is because of this that you need the services of a good garage door company to help you secure the area.

2) Nature – did you know that just as your garage door can be an entry point for thieves into your home, it can also serve as an entry point for nature? A garage door company often emphasizes the need to reinforce garage doors simply because it basically acts as an area of vulnerability. In every hurricane, people have had their roofs blown off. Did you know that all houses with unsecured garage doors typically lose their roofs as well? This is because when the garage door goes, the wind can gain entry onto your home and that entry would be large enough to blow your roof out from the inside. If this happens, it’s not just garage door repairs you’ll have to think of, but the majority of your home. 

Getting good garage door services would enable you to prevent either elements from invading your garage and causing damage. Now that you know why protecting your garage is so important, you really should consider the steps necessary to do so.

1) Steel – most garage door companies will agree that steel is probably the best garage door material available today. After all, steel is very durable and requires very little maintenance. This means you will be sure that you’ll have a sturdy garage door that won’t need a lot of looking after in order to maintain its quality. However, there are certain issues with steel that you might want to think about: first, steel is a poor insulator, which means you’ll spend more in terms of energy needed for heating and cooling your garage. Although steel doors are reasonably priced, cheaper ones tend to be more vulnerable to denting and will be a bit more expensive to repair. A lot of people might think that steel garage doors do not have a look appropriate to their home design but the brilliant thing is that today, steel garage doors can be made to look like almost any material! 

2) Aluminum – this garage door material is often chosen by a lot of people mainly because it is lightweight. This means installation of an aluminum garage door can be pretty easy. However, aluminum is easier to dent. Still, aluminum also offers great finishes that may imitate other materials. 

3) Wood – as far as garage door materials go, wood is a classic. Even today, every garage door company still makes wood doors in order to meet the demands of people. Wood doors add a tasteful quality to your home’s aesthetics. They are also among the easiest garage doors to install. In fact, you might not even have to pay a lot for a garage door service to install a wood door. Wood doors are also great insulators which will definitely help you shave a lot off your energy bills.

4) Fiberglass – fiberglass garage doors are best for use in coastal areas where the air can cause damage to materials like steel. However, it is important to take note that fiberglass garage doors will turn yellow from the salty air. What you need to do is make sure that the door is finished and painted properly in order for you to avoid this effect of ageing. One of the biggest mistakes that people make when getting fiberglass garage doors is thinking that transparent fiberglass doors will always remain clear.

1) You need a manual – Each garage door company manufactures its doors using very specific methods and these doors may require very specific care. As such, you need to get information that comes from the manufacturer itself. Garage door services typically carry manufacturer’s manuals for different door types. By getting your hand on a manual that pertains specifically to your door, you’ll know how to better take care of it.

2) Inspect carefully – make a visual inspection of the garage door before you do any maintenance work. Take a close look at the garage door springs, cables, rollers and other parts involved in the mechanics of the garage door. Open and close your door to check if anything is out of order. You should also take a look at the door itself to see if there’s sign of wear and tear. Make sure that you take note of any potential problems before you perform any maintenance or before you call a garage door service. Proper inspection will save you a whole lot of time and money in making sure that your door is in the best condition possible.  However, you need to be careful not to jump into making repairs right away. Some parts, like the garage door springs, can be dangerous when improperly handled.

3) Check the alignment – make sure the alignment of the door is alright. If the door is improperly aligned, it could place more stress on the springs and could contribute to a malfunction. Properly aligning your garage door also helps you make sure that the door moves freely and is thus not worn down easily. 

4) Get help – there are simple maintenance tasks that you might be able to do yourself. However, certain garage door care methods require expertise or, at least, a bit of help. Remember that a garage door is very heavy and you will not be able to support it by yourself. There are also certain tasks, such as replacing garage door springs that might be dangerous if you do not have sufficient knowledge regarding how to handle them.

5) Do it regularly – make a habit of regularly maintaining your garage door and you might just find that you are able to save a lot of cash on garage door services. There are a lot of people who fail to remember that maintenance is something to be done regularly, and not just on a whim. Remember that garage door care will ultimately help lengthen your garage door’s useful life and therefore increase the value of your investment.

First off, there is always the consideration that your garage door has been abused by weather and constant use. As you might realize, this can take its toll on anything. With something as exposed as a garage door, the damage of the elements can quickly cause it to deteriorate. Although a garage door company typically makes sure that its products are more than up to standard, you just cannot avoid the ravages of time. Sooner or later, replacing your garage door will become a great need rather than just a simple option. When that time comes, you need to be prepared. After all, replacing a garage door is no cheap expense. Considering the state of the economy today, you need to make sure that you replace the garage door on your own terms, rather than when you aren’t prepared for the expense.

Replacing your garage door helps you make sure that your garage is protected properly from the forces of nature and from ill-intentioned people. Remember that your garage acts as a very big entry point into your home and not protecting it properly will leave you vulnerable to different elements. By replacing your garage door, you can make sure that the door you purchase will be able to handle your needs better. It is also important to note that as time passes by, your needs in garage security also changes. By replacing your garage door, you will be able to better fit that door to your specific needs. Several garage door companies today actually make products that are best suited for fitting with the latest security implements. This means you will no longer have to obtain garage door services in order to properly configure your door for the installation of security features.

Getting a new garage door will also help you reconfigure the look and design of your home. Think about it: garage doors are among the most visible features of a house and thus, affect its aesthetics considerably. When you change your garage door, you would be practically be redesigning your home! This would help you make sure that your home design has organic unity –that is, it looks aesthetically complete.

Replacing your garage door on your own terms will also allow you to make sure that you are getting the best. As you might realize, a garage door can be vital to your home security and safety. If a garage door breaks down, you’ll need to replace it immediately and this would leave you at a great disadvantage when it comes to negotiating prices for a good replacement.

One of the essentials of using a garage door opener is programming the remote. Although automated openers today usually come pre-programmed with a remote, there are just certain times when a new remote is needed. Usually this is brought about by you losing the remote or the remote being damaged in some manner. There are replacements that may be bought, but you need to program them correctly in order for them to work. So how do you do this?

Well, you first need to make sure that you buy a compatible remote control. If, for example, you have a Genie garage door opener, you need to buy a remote that’s either also manufactured by Genie or something that’s compatible with the brand. This will help make programming that much easier.  Remember that openers are designed to work with a specific remote. Otherwise, you can just use your remote to open another person’s garage, rendering security systems useless.

Another thing you should is to get the actual programming instructions. There are actually different types of remote and home-linked garage openers and these require very specific programming methods. You need to learn, for example, if your garage door opener uses a rolling code system. This type of opener requires you to clear the codes first before you can input another. Getting the actual programming instructions also requires you to take note of the specific model of your garage door opener. A simple internet search will help you find the instructions you need.

Another thing you should keep in mind is that you need to reprogram both the garage door opener and any remote controls that you use. The opener itself may have a reset button on a corner that will allow you to clear stored codes. After that, you need to take all the remote controls you use and reconfigure the, so that they will work with the newly-reprogrammed motor. 

Reprogramming garage door openers can be very helpful not just for lost remote controls but also for changing your locks. If someone has a key to your garage and you want to deny them access, simply reprogramming the opener along with the remote you use would help you secure the house better.

In our quest to find the perfect garage door option, we suddenly realized that there is no such thing!

While an overhead garage door might be just perfect for someone, it might not be right at all for another. So we decided to backtrack and look at all the different options available in the garage doors and also look at which garage doors suit which kind of owners.

There is a small learning here – the garage doors that we buy are not supposed to fit only into the aesthetics of the architecture, but also the kind of car the garage houses, and more so, the personality of the home owner. For instance, a man known for his style should have a garage door that either is unique in its technology, or he should have one that is retro styled. Got the connection?

So we were looking at popular options, and we suddenly discovered that there is one option that is not glorified by garage door companies, and neither is it popular on the internet. However, the number of garage doors that are being installed in this model outnumbers the other popular models by far; and that is why we have a separate article for sliding garage doors.

By far, these are the easiest to operate, and even a child can open and close the garage door – provided the sliders are maintained in good condition. We are actually surprised why more people don’t choose this option that the normal manual garage door that opens upwards. If you have that kind of a door installed on your garage, or if you have seen the operation of a garage door that opens outwards, you will agree that opening and closing that kind of a door is nothing short of exercise! Especially for ladies, it is no joke to hoist up the door and pull it back down once the car is in. That is probably why garage doors that open upwards and slide into the roof were invented. But then, those also are not too easy to operate, and have been known to cause back problems due to constant use – especially when they are not well oiled.

So we come to our garage door of choice today – the sliding version. Like we said in the title, we need to first speak about who it is perfect for, and the answer is all those people who cannot afford / do not want to go in for an automatic garage door opener. In all the manual garage doors available, this one is probably most convenient – even more than the normal old style of carriage doors, since you don’t need to park the car at a distance and walk back to after opening the carriage doors outwards. In the case of sliding doors, you can drive right up to the door, slide the garage open, and put the car in! There is also an option in sliding garage doors, which allows you to operate both the doors by just sliding one part of it! Guess we can safely call this door as ‘Semi-Automatic’. Of course there is an automatic sliding garage door opener also; and that also is quite popular.

Getting into the details, there are various kinds of sliding garage door options. The most basic difference lies in the hardware, and there are three popular options there

• Flat Track
• Swiss Track, and
• Box Rail.

All of these options are different designs in the sliding hardware, and your Garage Door expert will suggest which one is right for your garage after taking a close look.

Operationally, there are four kinds of sliding garage doors

• Bi-Parting Doors
• Slingle Sliding Doors
• ByPassing Doors
• Bi-Folding Doors

The names of the doors would have told you how they operate, and hence we won’t dwell on them.

The beauty of sliding garage doors is that they can be used for barns and studios with equal ease, and they don’t look out of place! This is one option which will be gaining more popularity as time goes on.

If you already have a sliding garage door, and you’d like to make it automatic, there are several options there. This is in fact, one of the most popular garage doors which are being converted into automatic versions.

Our next article will be about another kind of a garage door. Stay tuned!

If you have followed the budget closely and have seen which bills have been signed by President Obama, you will know that there are quite a few interesting tax credits he has offered the American public. The one we are really interested in is a unique tax credit he’s offering for people to install ‘green’ garage doors. If you are wondering about how you can make garage doors green, we’d recommend that you read the article before this one which hits the nail on the head.

We can save up to $ 1500 on a new garage door which is ‘green’ enough. Here is a checklist you can follow to see whether your garage door qualifies for the tax credit

• Your garage door should be installed at your main residence (if you have multiple homes) and can also be on a garage that’s not attached to the home.
• The garage should be insulated and so should the garage door. By insulated, we mean a certified energy saving one.
• The garage door should have a U-factor of less than 0.3. U-factor is the factor given to doors and windows to gauge how energy efficient they are. Your garage door company will be able to give you the count in this regard.
• The solar heat gain coefficient of the garage door should also be less than 0.3, which makes it use less energy naturally.
• The door should come with an inbuilt air filtration system
• And the door should be in use for 5 years at the least.

If you look closely, all of these are in place to ensure that we use lesser energy; and the excess amount that might be spent on meeting these guidelines will be more than offset by the tax rebate.

Calculation of your tax rebate is a simple chore – 30% of the actual cost of the door can be claimed as a tax credit. This does not include the installation costs, or the costs of any additional accessories you might go in for. So, if you have a garage door that costs you $ 1000, you can claim a tax credit of $ 300. This rebate is applicable to all home owners who buy their new garage doors in 2009 and 2010. So when going in for a garage door, go in for one which is of a better quality. Even if it costs you a bit more, you will save more than what extra you spend by means of the tax rebate.

And remember, this is a tax rebate – not a tax deduction or a deductible expense. So if you have $ 300 as a tax credit, you can simply pay lesser tax this year!

Finally, the best garage door suppliers in the country will ensure that your garage door comes with the necessary certifications so you can claim that tax rebate. After the bill was passed, most of the garage door providers – whether through their shops or online, have marked out the doors which qualify for that tax rebate. So look out for that logo before you buy.

Going green was truly never so profitable!!

Pic Credit – Internet

You will not find it very strange if we talk to you about ‘Green Buildings’.

For several years now, starting with large corporates, companies have been trying to go green, and thereby do their bit for the environment.

In the last couple of years, homes also have been following suit, and today’, many of the large homes and apartment complexes are using more and more renewable and recyclable materials in their constructions. Whether it is the usage of timber from certified renewable forests or the installation of solar water heaters so as to reduce the burden on fossil fuel fired power plants, home builders have been quite enthusiastic to embrace this new and exciting change in constructions. Another area where this has largely played a part is in the construction of buildings in a way that makes them use more and more natural lighting. Gone are the days of feeling fashionable because the electric bulbs glow at home all day. Today, it is the other way around – even in the evenings, the lesser lighting we use, the more up-to-date we are with the changes going on around us!

Anyway, all of these might be things you already know, or might have atleast heard about. This article specifically talks about the usage of green technologies in our specialty – garages and garage doors!

Yes, garage doors also are going green, and in a pretty significant way. For example, a leading garage door manufacturer has a special product which is made of 100% recycled wood fiber. Not only does this door make us feel good about contributing to a better earth, but it also looks great! And no, it is not all that costly either!

Quite a few major garage door manufacturers ensure that the paint they put on the doors is not the chemical one – which lies around in our lakes and streams for hundreds of years; but the powder-coat version, which is bio-degradable to a large extent. Another major area of going green in choosing garage doors is to choose the material used – especially if your garage is insulated. A large number of homes (especially in the city) have living areas above them, and since the heating is common to both levels, usually garages are also insulated. Now, if the doors are not thick enough (atleast R 16-18 instead of the usually used R6-8), there can be a lot of heat lost, leading to energy bills that are much higher. Not insulating your garages unless absolutely necessary would be the easiest thing to do in order to do your bit for the environment. If you have an internal passageway into your home, you don’t need to insulate your whole garage. If you insulate the door that connects and use the right kind of seals to see that there is no leakage from the door into the garage, that should do! And if you have a floor on top of the garage, use a better floor seal on the first floor. You might be spending more than normal while constructing your home / garage; but in a few months, that will easily be offset by the savings in power bills!

There is an exciting news – about getting tax credits when you build your garage right, and that we will cover in a separate article, but coming back to the concept of green homes, there has been quite the revolution in the segment.

You would be very aware of Energy Star – the government backed program, which ensure that the products which are more energy efficient than the normal ones are marked separately and consumers are encouraged to buy them – for instance, CFL bulbs are recommended over the normal light bulbs. You might say that they cost more, but you will more than offset the cost when it comes to the long run. Similarly, there is now a mandatory notice on every consumer electrical product we buy mentioning the energy efficiency against a rating of 5, with 1 being the least energy efficient product. This also applies to automatic garage door openers, and there are a few companies that make door openers that are way more energy efficient than the traditional ones which have been around for a long time now.

There has never been a more fashionable (and practical) time to go green! Try it.

This one we found on Google Books! But could not find a way to embed the book on a WordPress Blog. Here’s a link to the rest of the book by the way – http://books.google.com/books?id=EikDAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA62&pg=PA62; and yes, this is the first documented article we could find about automatic door openers. This one was written in December 1918!!

The technology behind automatic garage doors was first used during the World War II, when remote controllers were used to detonate bombs. It was then that the idea of using radio frequency to operate something remotely gained popularity, and some genius used it in opening his garage doors. As expected, it soon gained a lot of popularity, as that was the radio era, and everything wireless flew off the shelves.

However, there was a practical problem that got recognized soon after!

When two neighbors had automatic radio controlled garage doors, and if the frequency of one was very close to the other, it opened both!! That was a serious nuisance, and as you would expect, it led to a lot of squabbles between neighbors. So inventors went back to their design tables, and came up with a better frequency range – known as 256 codes. That was to ensure that the nearby garage doors don’t fall into one frequency; but the law of averages went wrong once in a while. Then it was recognized that these garage doors could be opened easily by a persistent thief and lots of robberies started happening in garages!

Then came the modern concept of 300-400 MHz rolling code technology, which ran on an algorithm, and each time the opener was used, a new code was used from the algorithm. This added a new security layer to garage doors, and the owners slept peacefully. Now, it is a 300-315 MHz frequency that is in place.

Today’s garage door openers are much more advanced with lots of motion sensors in place, and complex technologies including one which has an integrated Carbon Monoxide sensor that opens the garage door automatically when it senses fumes from the exhaust pipe! The government has put up a few rules in place to ensure that the security and safety laws are complied with. For instance,

• All garage door openers installed since 1982 need to have an automatic release mechanism on the trolley allowing the garage door opener to separate from the garage door in case of malfunction and if someone is trapped inside!
• Another law that was passed in 1982 required automatic garage doors to reverse by themselves if they hit a solid object – this law was put in place to ensure that no human being or animal gets hurt inadvertently.
• In the year 1993, this law got upgraded with photo electric light sensors that had to be installed at a height of not more than 6 inches from the ground. If the door was closing and the light beam had an interruption, the garage door was to be automatically restored to open position – as you can image – so that no one gets hurt.

While these are the laws of the government in this regard, there are several more options which modern garage door companies give their customers. Ranging from automatic lights that turn on and off while opening and closing of garage doors, to a remote lockout feature which ensures that your garage door remote does not work if you are on vacation; they are all available at a difference in price points.

The future of garage door openers is quite exciting! Already, leading companies have started seriously promoting finger print based openers that can be operated wirelessly, so that you don’t need to worry about codes any more! Specially designed for the forgetful American family!!

There are more and more features that are being added on each year, and there are several accessories that are becoming available to ensure that our garage experience is further bettered. With keychain remote controllers becoming quite common, we now have mobile phone operated garage door openers, and even telephone call operated openers so that the door can be called on to open before you turn into your driveway!

The future sure is exciting, and to think that all of this stemmed from the Germans’ idea of detonating bombs remotely, it is quite amazing!!

Our next article talks about the choices we have in garage door openers and which one suits whom! Stay Tuned.

Good one, huh?? This guy is a genius

Source – YouTube (Obviously!)

Here is one example of a door which you would not expect seeing on a garage.

How would you like your garage door to be like this one? Strange, huh?

Still, if your home ambience is outright royal, this probably won’t look out of place. As you can see from the picture, this one is a pure wood garage door with a bit of intricate carvings done all around and in the middle. This door would fit right into an environment where there is a lot of wood used, and especially the kind with some carvings done.

What you don’t see from this picture is the automatic controls which have been deftly installed so it won’t spoil the look of the garage doors. The door opens outwards, and that means this house (where the door has been installed) would be quite spacious. If you have a garage which entails free movement of the door outwards, you can also choose a garage door which opens outwards, as it is simply the most practical design available. However, with space becoming a constraint, and with electronic garage door openers working better with garage doors which roll up and overhead, most of the people prefer those models nowadays. But remember the good old carriage doors of the bygone era and you will notice that the only model which was in vogue back then was the ones which open outwards! With retro style making a strong comeback, having a garage door which is styled as per the old era would only add to your glam quotient!

Stay tuned to this blog, and we will bring you the pictures of the garage doors (and garage designs) of quite a few celebs; and we will also keep bringing you unique designs of garage doors from around the world. In fact, we found a wrought iron design from China which will be up here quite soon.

Pic Credit – Internet

Like we mentioned in an earlier article, there are various uses for garage doors, and some are so strange that you won’t even believe us! So when we come to them, we’ll also put in a few pictures so you believe us better J

Residential garage doors are chosen on the basis of two major factors.

1. Space available

2. Convenience and practicality of usage

Even if you have no experience with garage doors, you won’t find it difficult to agree with these two points, right?

Most of the residential garage doors are chosen on the basis of the available space. Since we build homes and then look out for garage space; or even worse – when we renovate a home, we suddenly realize that we need a larger garage but within the same space; it is quite a challenge to find the right kind of garage door to fit into the aesthetics of your home. It is also necessary that the design allow you to drive in and out conveniently, which brings us to the next point on our list.

Convenience here is in two stages

- Convenience of parking and driving out, and

- Convenience of opening and closing.

A home owner will naturally want to have a garage door that opens on its own remotely, so that he does not need to get out of the car to open and close the garage door. This requires garage doors to either slide up and hide into the roof, or roll up onto itself. It does not make a lot of sense to have automatic doors that swing outwards! Similarly, the garage door needs to be in a design which allows you to drive in and out of your garage comfortably. This is more of a challenge when you have a multiple car garage, and one door to operate it.

There are various kinds of residential garage doors available, and depending on your requirements you can choose the one which fits your home the best. Here are a few examples.

Wooden garage doors – which come with the rustic look, but don’t go too well with automatic door openers (there are a couple of variants in the market, but you will have to experiment). These doors are just right for rambler style houses which have a lot of wood in the construction.

Steel garage doors – are among the most durable models, and are the best choice when it comes to overhead door systems. These again are in various kinds, and the quality of steel will vary depending on the model you choose.

Insulated garage doors – are perfect for an internal garage, where you have heating / cooling in the garage too. This is also the choice if you have the garage opening into your home, and you don’t want the heat from inside your house escaping through the garage doors. There are various models and brand names available in the market from different companies. There is even a model which is made of steel but looks uncannily like wood!

Quiet garage doors – are usually made of either steel or some other stable metal. These, like the name suggests, are just right for doors that work with quiet automatic openers. The material used in construction ensures that the operation remains silent.

There are several more kinds (in fact, every other week some or the other company comes up with some ‘breakthrough’ in residential garage doors), but these are the most popular ones, and most probably you will choose from one of these when it comes to your home.

One mistake that people do is that they install a manual garage door first and then see if they can convert it to automatic in a couple of years. Now, there’s nothing wrong, but a modification is not the real thing, is it?

So plan in advance; and you can take the help of residential garage door experts in your region to help you choose better.

While looking up the keywords related to garage doors that have been searched for on Google, we found that one of the most recurrent key phrases was ‘types of garage doors’.

In the earlier article, we spoke a bit about the different materials garage doors are made of. Here we’ll go forward and talk about the major kinds of garage doors and also take you through which one is right for you – in general. If you are a garage door enthusiast, or if you are contemplating on which kind of doors are right for your home / ranch, we’d recommend that you bookmark this page. There is a lot of awesome information related to the topic lined up, and we’re sure you’ll find it real useful.

Basically, there are four kinds of garage doors that are popular in the United States (and pretty much all over the world). They are

· Roller Garage Doors

· Up and Over Garage Doors

· Sectional Garage Doors, and

· Swing Hung Garage Doors.

All four kinds are quite popular, and when you read through these names, we’re sure that all of them created an image in your mind. We’ll talk about each of them in depth in the coming articles, but here is a general info about them all.

· Roller Garage Doors – The most ideal option for home owners. Especially for those people who do not have a lot of space for their garage and have a short driveway. The most common material with which these are manufactured is Aluminum, and that makes them both light and sturdy at the same time. As the name suggests, Roller Garage doors are the variety which rolls up on itself when opened – much like the industrial rolling shutter that we see. The major different would be the material, and in most cases – home roller garage doors are automated.

· Up and Over Garage Doors – This is probably the most complex of them all, but they are quite popular all the same! Up and over garage doors are the variant in which the door comes out first and then stows parallel to the ceiling. So you will know that they require a lot of space – both on the ground and on the roof of the garage. Homes with a lot of drive space and large garages have this as a chosen option as it exudes a look of sophistication which cannot be matched!

· Sectional Garage Doors – If you have multiple cars, this is probably the one you end up choosing. Unlike the next option, where the doors open outwards, sectional garage doors open upwards, and in sections. The basic difference between the Up and Over garage doors and this one is the simple fact that sectional garage doors don’t need to come out first in order to get stowed on the roof. There is just a simple mechanism where the door opens upwards and gets stowed on the roof. So homes with less space in the driveways or homes where the doors need to be left open for a long time would prefer this kind of garage doors.

· Swing Hung Garage Doors – These are probably the most popular and also make up the image that pops up into your mind when you think ‘garage doors’. Starting from the Carriage houses of the olden days to the modern garages where electronic doors swing outwards, they all fall into this category. We don’t need to tell you much about these doors, except for the fact that you will need a lot of space around your garage door in order to open this, and your driveway needs to be fairly large to accommodate this kind of doors.

If you look at the four options, you will notice that we also mentioned a few pros and cons of each. That is to help you decide which one of these will be the best choice for your home. In case you are confused between more than one, look up their respective articles on this site, or you can call a garage door expert on 1-888-666-2050.

Choosing a garage door is one of those things that gets people to become as fickle minded as is humanly possible! With more and more options coming in every year, it is bound to get even more difficult, and in this blog, we will try to lay some of those worries to rest!

According to Wikipedia, a Garage door is a large door on a garage that can be opened either manually or by a garage door opener electronically. So that is the first thing you need to consider – whether you’d like a manual garage door or an electronic one. And if you are prejudiced for or against one of these variants, you’ve not seen the different alternatives available in both of them.

Did you know that the concept of garage doors originated from the stable doors of the past? You would know that cars replaced horses or horse drawn carriages at the turn of the earlier century; and hence the garages were actually modeled on the lines of the carriage houses of the past. Since then, the kind of innovation that has gone into the humble garage door is not significantly less than the innovation in any other field like say – cars themselves!

Building a house is the all-time American dream, and when we say a house, it is almost always an independent ranch style rambler that we dream of – and not the little condo in the city. One of the major reasons for that is so we can have a large garage with a wide variety of vehicles – ranging from a tractor to a Hummer! If you close your eyes and imagine, you will not see the interiors of the garage, but only the exterior – and that is a garage door! Try it, and you will agree with us.

Like we said earlier, choosing a garage door is among the most difficult decisions you can take when you build your home. The first decision itself leaves you stumped – whether you’d like a manual garage door or an electronic one. Let us give you a little tip here – follow your heart.

A lot of people follow their neighbors’ heart instead of their own, and that is what leaves them regretting that decision for a long time after. It is not necessary that an electronic garage door is absolutely more beneficial than a manual one. Depending on the décor of your home and the kind of aesthetics you are working with, a manual one may just be the right choice for you. But an automatic garage door is much more convenient, simply because of the fact that you don’t need to get out of your car in order to open it. But there are thousands of people who don’t like changing over to the automatic version, and we completely agree with them too! We know of a rancher who still has the same carriage house doors on his garage – they are over a hundred years old, and you cannot get him to change over to the automatic version come what may!

The next confusing choice is the material of your garage door. Steel, Aluminum, Wood, and Vinyl are among the most popular choices, and a lot of modern doors are being made with a combination of several materials to give more strength and durability. Thanks to technology, we now have garage doors that are ultra modern and are fully automatic, and look just like the carriage house doors of the bygone era. So if that is your passion, you have a solution ready.

There are several other confusions too, but we believe that if you bypass these two major hurdles, the rest of the decisions more or less automatically fall into place. For instance, if you pick an automatic garage door, you will then choose the type of opening mechanism and the kind of door opener you’d like. If you take our advice, get an expert to come in and suggest the right kind of garage door for your usage. If possible, get them to install it too, so you will not have to worry about it.

It is a lot of fun constructing something, and setting up a garage door is no different. Enjoy the process!