Why Overhead Garage Doors Are the Best

It’s not every day you need a new garage door. Garage doors last years, sometimes even decades, and a good quality door lasts homeowners on average, fifteen years. The garage door market has changed, revolutionizing doors for better security, increased privacy, and more fluid designs.

When in the midst of your garage door search, you might be surprised at how much the industry and garage door products have changed. With so many different styles available, you might wonder which option to settle on. However, there’s a reason why the overhead garage door design has held strong since its original debut.

Overhead Garage Doors and Safety

Let’s face it, accidents happen, and garage door accidents are a common tragedy. For overhead garage doors, however, this problem was recognized early on and efforts have been made in their technology and manufacturing to develop preventative safety measures.

When first introduced, garage doors that close and open overhead style didn’t have nearly as many sensors to detect if something was in the way or obstructing its path. Fortunately, today’s leap into modern technology has transformed the way overhead garage doors are made.

Children have a tendency to put their hands and fingers where they’re prone to injury, the garage door being one of those places. For many garage doors, door sections are available with shaped edges that push fingers outward as they close.

Specifically, advancements in safety protocol can be attributed to the WayneGard finger-saving feature, developed by Wayne-Dalton and recognized by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1998.

But it was in the early 1990s where the federal government acknowledged how dangerous any style of automatic garage door can be and chose to implement regulations and standards to demand a higher call for safety. Because overhead garage doors have been in the industry for decades, these safety measures have only gotten more advanced, with new technology to detect and prevent potential accidents.

Most Available Material Options

The popularity behind overhead garage doors is what drives the many options for the materials they’re composed from. Other styles of garage doors have limited options because they are not as in-demand. Opening styles like tilt-up and carriage doors are rare, with minimal design options.

Overhead garage doors come in a slew of materials. Wood is appropriate for a historically restored home, one with a natural or traditional design. Wood is heavy duty, durable and unique, offering protection from outdoor elements without sacrificing security.

Steel garage doors are the prevailing material in the garage door industry today. Typically, steel doors are reinforced with a rigid-foam insulation paneling, which allows the interior of the garage to retain and regulate temperatures. Steel doors manufactured with a baked-on primer and polyester topcoat offer optimal protection from elements like rust.

A perk within the numerous material options for overhead garage doors is that many manufacturers guarantee an extended warranty on the doors themselves. Steel doors will usually be slated with a 10-year warranty or more, depending on the manufacturer, and for wood garage doors, the warranties tend to begin at a 15-year warranty.

Numerous Design Options

As with material options, there are plenty of design options for overhead garage doors, too. Where other opening styles have a few standard looks and designs to pick from, overhead garage doors offer plenty, adhering to whatever overall aesthetic and style your home has.

Windows in an overhead garage door are a commonly utilized option. Overhead doors come in an array of windowed options that will suite the style of your home’s exterior. For a windowed look without the feel of everyone being able to peer inside of your garage, there’s a design for that, and for windows to just let in enough light, there’s a design for this as well.

Paint colors are another feature for overhead garage doors and there are plenty of options in this regard, too. Standard colors are white, beige, crimson and hunter green, but with overhead garage doors, many companies will offer custom paints.

For steel garage doors, you can even paint your overhead door to match whatever color you have in mind or due to the overhead door’s popularity, you can likely find a garage door company to do this job for you.

Cost Effectiveness

Overhead doors are mass-produced due to the dictation of supply and demand. Yes, you’ll find companies that vary slightly in the making of their models, but mostly, parts and components remain similar and for third-party manufacturers, many parts can be found that are compatible and interchangeable.

Overhead doors are made to certain standards and regulations, too, which make the manufacturing process more uniform, adhering to certain codes, specs and quality control. This is why your overhead garage door is going to last you at least fifteen to twenty years if maintained and cared for.

In comparison to other opening styles of garage doors, overhead doors come out to be much more cost effective. Carriage doors that swing out and tilt-up doors that raise outward and upward are more difficult to motorize, which alone adds to the sheer cost of the installation bill.

Due to their lack of demand, it can also be difficult to track down a garage door company that makes or will install these types of doors. Your final cost in a door other than an overhead style could be tremendous depending on these factors, especially if you’re after a custom paint or design.

Least Time Consuming

We’re all in a big hurry these days and the last thing we want to wait on is for our garage door to open up. Overhead garage doors are designed with maximum efficiency in mind, which is what makes them the fastest opening garage door available today.

Other styles that swing-out or tilt-up take time—time we just don’t have in waiting for our garage doors to fully open. Swing-out doors have the downfall of sometimes being completely unable to open if your car is too close, and who has time to deal with something like that?

The Benefits of an Overhead Garage Door

Overhead garage doors reign supreme to this day and this is a fact held true by many benefits. Why deal with the disadvantages of other opening styles when you could have an overhead door at a lower cost, more options for exterior aesthetics and safety features that have been continually advanced since this style of door was introduced.

You shouldn’t have to fuss over or worry about your garage door and by installing an overhead door, you won’t have to. For overhead doors, there are many companies and resources at your disposal, from the design process to installation and repair.

Feldco Garage Doors

Over 400,000 homeowners have chosen Feldco for their home improvement needs. When it comes to garage doors, we have just what you’re looking for. Feldco offers steel garage doors because they’re energy efficient, low maintenance and they look great. Start your garage door project today and get a free quote now.