Choosing a Garage Door

When you are in a market for a garage door there are certain there you should look for in order to get the best door you can. The current trend in doors for garages is urethane inject, thermally broken steel door. This is the best type of door because it is incredibly strong has a good insulation value and has a factory applied baked on finish. All manufacturers claim that the doors they sell have the best insulation. You need to look for a door that has an insulating value of R16 (1 ¾ inches thick) or R12 (1 3/8 inches thick).

You should choose a garage door that is light in color because dark colors will absorb the heat of the sun and tens to bow after a while. You also have to make sure that the finish has been applied in the factory and not by the dealer. A steel interior liner in the door is also the best option rather than any other kind of material. You should ask if the dealer has a section of a door that you can examine for the urethane injection. If this is not done properly, the door could actually fall apart. Freshly exposed urethane should be slightly off white with no air bubbles, similar to the foam found in a mattress. The steel should not peel away from the foam without removing a layer of the foam.

The counterbalance assembly of the door should be torsion springs and not plastic. There should be good quality bearings used throughout and ones that you can lubricate on a regular basis. The rollers can be either steel or nylon because both of these stand up well to a lot of use. You also need to check the windows in the door because these make the door heavier to lift. If there are windows in one section of the door, it may weigh more than the other sections and it may be difficult to get the door balanced properly. Even though the torsion springs lift the door, windows in one section will make it difficult for the springs to lift the door evenly. You also need to check how the windows are mounted into the door and whether or not they are sealed around the frame. You wouldn’t want to install a new garage door only to find that rain leaks in around the windows.