Garage Doors

[Sundayjumper]

We've had three people round to quote, still waiting for a price from the last one.

1) The people the neighbours used recently. Their own make of electric roller. Double-glazing style sales pitch. Waaayy too expensive. Terrible online reviews. Will not be using

2) Local branch of a national franchise. Gliderol or AlluGuard electric roller. Decent chap. Sounds OK.

3) Local independent. Was much more keen on sectional doors, likes to use SWS SeceuroGlide. #2 didn't even mention sectional doors.


I don't have much space above the lintel and apparently the sectional door only needs 100mm whereas the "compact" roller is 205mm and the "normal" roller is 300mm. The 300mm option would result in me whacking my head on a regular basis. I know you lose use of the ceiling space with a sectional door but the headroom sounds appealing.

What's the forum opinion ?

I've just seen the side-sliding sectional doors which look ace, but a lot more expensive

[dinny_g]

will be interested to see how you get on.

The new house we bought has a Half Garage as they nabbed the back half of it for the Kitchen Extensions. With an Up and Over door, we've loosing a lot of the space down both walls so was thinking of getting a roller to maximise the space

[V8Granite]

I can’t remember the make but we had an up and over door put in when I lived with my folks. Aslong as the frame is nice and solid it’s a cheap and reliable set-up.

At mine I had 2 barn doors made, they look nicer and only cost me £850 for them and a stable door for the side door. You do need space to open them though if you need them for access aswell.

Dave!

[mik]

I don’t have anything modern to compare them against (only had awful ancient up & over steel doors in the past) but Hormann sectional doors at current and previous houses. Insulated - which makes a huge difference - would absolutely recommend.

Garador opener at the last place was good, but Hormann at current place is better. 20secs door close time, but only 12.5secs to open - which is exactly 7.5 betterer as you are walking and/or driving towards it.

Cant fault the sectionals tbh!

(Just measured and my sectional is 200mm above the door aperture, but I am not tightly constrained so maybe there are low-profile alternatives)

[Jobbo]

Do the sectional doors fit in the aperture rather than behind it, as I think pretty much all roller doors do? I always think roller garage doors are visually odd because they're set further back and look somewhat industrial.

I've never changed a garage door in my life though, so I'm used to the basic up and over ones which came with my houses over the years.

[Simon]

I've been looking at changing, and will in the coming months. I'll be going with a sectional door as it looks like they can go higher into right up to the garage rafters when they go up and back, rather than the simple up and over door I have at the moment that really restricts the height of whatever I put in the front 2m+ of the garage. Looking at a Hormann with a colour match to our front door.

[Gwaredd]

No idea what brand mine is (sorry), but it lasted 16 years before I needed a new motor, and that was my fault for lowering it onto my work bench! I used a local company called Freelance Garage doors in Salisbury. Mine is an 8' x 8' roller door and it sits flush with the garage ceiling as the 'box' it rolls into protrudes into the upstairs office instead of hanging down. It's for sale soon as we're converting the garage to a vinyl room & the upstairs to a bedroom.

[Jobbo]

Vinyl room? That’s a bit niche.

[KiwiDave]

We've three sectional doors - all awesome. At 6ft 4ins I only have issues with head clearance with one of them, where the floor's raised (long story) rest of the time with normal sort of garage height zero issues.

[JonMad]

Good timing on this thread as we're contemplating a new front door and garage door as the new patio and front path makes the existing ones look a bit crap.

[mik]

I've just seen the side-sliding sectional doors which look ace, but a lot more expensive

I wasn’t aware of these, but :

1. They do look pretty cool

B. Fuck me they take ages to open/close. That would do my head in.

4. You have to drive over the lower runner - not sure if general crap collecting there will cause problems over time.

[Jobbo]

4. You have to drive over the lower runner - not sure if general crap collecting there will cause problems over time.

My mother and stepfather had a sectional garage door like that for many years, but older and manual. I suspect the panels were a bit heavier. It was very heavy to move; they replaced it a few years ago because it was too much for my mother. The lower track definitely got gunk in it over time and I'm sure that contributed to it being difficult to open and close. It also meant you had one internal wall of the garage which nothing could be leant against. Very much a solution for garages which are wide but have a height constraint, I'd say.

ETA: watching it again, that automatic one seems to slow down and speed up even though it's clearly new; I wouldn't trust it to keep working long term.

[V8Granite]

Those doors take up a huge amount of wall space though, far less efficient than normal doors.

Dave!

[Sundayjumper]

B. Fuck me they take ages to open/close. That would do my head in.

What's appealing to me though, is that for pedestrian access you only need to open it 18" or so, where a vertical door needs to open all the way. I don't move the cars in & out of the garage on a daily basis but I probably do go in & out on foot.

Anyway, they're too expensive for my situation, so this is moot

[Jimmy Choo]

B. Fuck me they take ages to open/close. That would do my head in.

Just rig it up so it plays the Thunderbirds theme each time. Problem solved.

[mik]

B. Fuck me they take ages to open/close. That would do my head in.

What's appealing to me though, is that for pedestrian access you only need to open it 18" or so, where a vertical door needs to open all the way.

True, although that still takes about 5secs. With the rapid-open feature on the Hormann opener, the door has raised enough to stoop under within 7-8secs.

[KiwiDave]

From the other thread everyone appears to think I've buried bodies under the garage hence there being a raised garage floor. Details are way more boring and all stems from the house being onto/into a hill.

Garage looks like this. House sits behind it. You can see our biggest issue is currently that the limit stops aren't quite working and so the main door has a habit of almost closing then opening again. Temp bodge is we just press the button when it's almost closed til I figure out how to reprogram it.



With the doors open you can see the roofline of the house behind showing how it falls away down the hill. The beer fridge is obviously also important. We use main double door for the cars currently, next one along to store tools and bikes, and the last door is to a half-depth space which has the solar stuff in it and a load of stuff I need to arrange to take to the tip.



The half depth garage:



Inside the main double garage the motor bit and the mechanism clear my head (6ft 4ins) just so I don't have any issues:



But in that middle door, because the ground isn't entirely flat in front of the garage and the tarmac is higher, inside the garage the previous owners raised the floor:



The whole thing is built from wood, and under the floor itself the ground is already falling away, so the raised bit is really a strong wooden box on top of a timber floor. The previous owner had his Cobra on it. He has more money than me so I just store the bikes, tools and the bins on it for now.



Head clearance on this bit though is an issue. I semi regularly smack my head on the motor bit and the arm of the mechanism. It hurts but I still keep doing it...



Excuse the face...



Long term the end semi-garage will get cleared out and the bikes will go in there with some of the tools, leaving the middle bit to house another car. Very long term though. Worst part about the garage is the roof has a pitch which angles downwards so toward the back of the garage the roof is lower - between this and the fact there's windows in it everywhere there aren't many decent places to put up storage solutions.

[KiwiDave]

Oh and adding in, the reason I don't smack my head on it in the end garage is because it's not as deep, the whole motor and mechanism are almost against the back wall and I just don't walk there.

[mik]

Don’t worry Dave - what’s said about dead bodies under the garage floor on the ov9 forum, stays on the ov9 forum.

Interestingly you have a huge hooky-thing compared to mine (require opportunity). Mine is a 4-section door too. Shown in open & closed condition. Maybe needed to suit lower profile (?)

[Gwaredd]

Dave, your pictures used to be much more interesting mate. These are boring