When selecting garage doors, there are several points worth considering, but arguably one of the most important is aesthetics – how good the doors look and how well they complement the rest of the house and its frontage.
It’s hard to make any plausible case that a solid block of vinyl enhances visual appeal, and the ease with which metal dents and deforms quickly makes metal garage doors look as though they have seen better days. By contrast, wooden garage doors are naturally attractive and retain their beauty with age. Scuffs and scratches actually lend them character and are anyway easily repaired if needs be requiring little more than basic handyman tips to deal with most situations.
It’s no coincidence that wood garage doors are still first choice among architects, builders and homeowners; solid wood garage doors always add a touch of quality in the same way that solid wooden window frames totally outclass aluminium and uPVC window systems. It is also much easier to match wood types and colours to existing architectural features such as the main doors and windows of a house.
As already mentioned, wood is easy to work and repair and when properly treated wooden garage doors can easily outlast so-called maintenance-free materials such as steel, aluminium, fibre-glass and vinyl (also called polyethylene).
Metal doors are prone to attracting dents and to buckling (even simply kicking a ball against a metal garage door can ruin its appearance), and while steel doors tend to be less susceptible than aluminium, steel is heavier and will eventually rust. Fibre-glass and vinyl, while being lightweight and initially robust will over time degrade and become brittle and crack due to exposure to ultra-violet light and they are not realistically repairable once that happens.
Classic wood garage doors also provide a useful lesson in simplicity of design. Using solid wood rails and legs with panels channelled into them and typically swinging outwards on hinges there is no complicated internal framework just waiting to fail or extraneous fastenings to corrode. Most metal and vinyl garage doors on the other hand employ either an “up-and-over” system or the more recent “carriage style garage doors” design that looks as though it might swing outwards but in fact is sectioned and rolls upwards.
In both cases, complex mechanisms using garage door springs are vital to the operation of the door. And it is a near certainty that, even if you regularly maintain the mechanism, you will at some point be required to adjust your garage door springs and possible repair and/or replace them which is not a trivial task.
Get behind any set of garage doors though and the full story is revealed. Only solid wood doors look good on both sides and are not just an outer shell concealing latch mechanisms on the inside. This is critically important to anyone considering using their garage as a secondary living space.
Not only do wood garage doors look good both from outside and inside the garage, they offer superior insulation and security characteristics – heat simply flies through metal and vinyl and neither material supports the sort of proven, quality locking mechanisms typically found in solid wood doors. Although it is relatively simple to add insulating panels to the inside of a metal door, the result is never especially easy on the eye and the result compares poorly against a pre-insulated wooden garage door.
For those looking for ultimate protection then high security wooden garage doors internally reinforced with steel are able to resist even the most determined attackers for a considerable length of time. These not only protect your property but can form the basis of a garage “safe room” to prevent intruders threatening or harming you or your family.
In summary then, wooden garage doors are not only the best looking option, but last better than the alternatives and are simpler, more environmentally friendly and score highly where security and insulation are concerned. There’s no escaping the fact that a wood panelled door is far and away the most expensive option, but there’s always a price to pay for quality and don’t forget either that wood garage doors can increase the value of your home.
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When selecting garage doors, there are several points worth considering, but arguably one of the most important is aesthetics – how good the doors look and how well they complement the rest of the house and its frontage.
It’s hard to make any plausible case that a solid block of vinyl enhances visual appeal, and the [...]
Being burgled is an upsetting experience; the cost of replacing stolen or damaged items (hopefully through insurance) is frequently cited as secondary to the fact that someone has violated your personal sanctuary, the place you call home. So it’s worth taking the trouble over security.
Now, when it comes to security in the modern world, most people are familiar with the idea of taking sensible precautions to protect their home by fitting locking bolts to windows and deadlocks on entrance doors. Yet when it comes to the garage it’s surprising how many folk assume that the flimsiest security measures will suffice.
Not only do many people’s garages in fact contain items of considerable value, to a burglar they also often provide an easy route into the main house.
Even if you don’t keep an expensive car or several in your garage, you quite likely have a good stock of tools ideal for assisting a break-in and if your garage is integral to or otherwise adjoins your house it also provides excellent cover for anyone attempting a break-in to really go about their business completely unobserved. Most integral garages also provide an obvious weak link – direct access via the internal door to the house.
It should be obvious what the answer is: secure garage doors. Unfortunately, the majority of budget vinyl and steel garage doors just aren’t up to the job. They have woefully ineffective locking systems that the average person could defeat with a bit of effort and most burglars can dispense with in seconds. They are also of course made from materials that are either easy to deform or break.
Due to the more robust nature of wooden garage doors, these often have much better locks but are still no match for a determined intruder who is likely to deploy considerable force, using either a jemmy (a powerful steel crowbar) to pull at weak spots or simply kicking the panels in.
However, there are garage doors available that can withstand a prolonged attack from even the most determined intruder. In Europe the certification covering anti-intrusion (ENV 1627) specifies a number of classes, where for example a Class 1 certified door is resistant to attempts to break it down or the application of hook and traction from outside.
ENV 1627 Class 3 high security doors are guaranteed to resist a sustained attack from even the most experienced burglars using a variety of tools for at least 20 minutes. Being essentially still wooden these doors still retain their elegant appearance but contain high tensile steel inserts within.
High security garage doors are not only effective as a deterrent against intruders, but can also serve as a primary component for constructing a safe room. A safe room (also often called a “panic room” – a term originally coined to enhance the dramatic appeal of a film of the same name) is a well protected enclosed space that can be used to shelter people and/or valuables from attacks of various kinds (criminals, storms and so on).
Given the high level of primary protection that high security garage doors offer they are also ideal as the basis for creating a secure garage gun safe for example, or even converting your garage into effectively a large safe for storing all manner of valuables.
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Being burgled is an upsetting experience; the cost of replacing stolen or damaged items (hopefully through insurance) is frequently cited as secondary to the fact that someone has violated your personal sanctuary, the place you call home. So it’s worth taking the trouble over security.
Now, when it comes to security in the modern world, most [...]