Vinyl Residential Garage Door - With 6 windows?

[fishcakes]

Hello All - My house still has the original single "wood" garage door and it has 6 windows across the top measuring approximately 12" across and 16" down; a very nice look. The wood is unfortunately corroding badly now and in need of replacement. I was looking for the same design, which is simple, in Vinyl with the six windows. However, it appears that the major vinyl garage door manufacturers only seen to have 4 windows across in a landscape, instead of a horizontal design, like 14" or 16" across by 12" down. I've tried all the major home improvement stores like Home Depot & lowes and even a specialty store where I live, but they all seem to carry just a few of the same brands. Would anyone know if I am just spinning my wheels looking for a 6 window vinyl garage door or does someone know a manufacturer or know of a place that may sell them. Your advice is much appreciated. Also, any advice on what to look for in a vinyl garage door would be appreciated as well. Kind regards to all.

[dpb]

As you've discovered, the major brands are all pretty similar as all are competing against each other for the mass market. You'll probably have to go to a custom to actually match what you have precisely, but if you have the budget, you can get anything you want. The question will be whether it's worth the cost.

The cheapest alternative will probably be if you're in a large-enough metro area that there is a local manufacturer who will do custom jobs. For that, you'll need to look in the yellow pages for garage doors in the wholesale or manufacturers section as well as retail. You may also want to try the local independent garage door installers and see which of them do high-end residential work (which entails the occasional custom job).

Failing that, you're down to one of the custom-manufacturing places and getting it shipped in. I don't suppose there's any chance of identifying a manufacturer of the existing door any longer, is there?

As a final alternative, depending on how bad the door is, it just might be possible/feasible to repair it by replacing the bad sections. I have an unusual sized door on a garage (it's tall enough for a full-size truck, almost 9') and it was falling apart at the bottom rail. Unable to get one locally to replace it, I did make a new bottom rail for it and replaced the panels of the bottom section. Fortunately, in this case, the upper sections were still ok and I happen to have a full woodworking shop and experience, but a good cabinet maker could have made the pieces required. It takes a couple of people to handle such a section though, of course.

Magazines like Fine Homebuilding and other architectural-related sources are a resource of such specialty products. Again, of course, that route will be more expensive.

[fishcakes]

Thanks dpb - I took another look at the door and it looks like a lot of what I thought was corrosion is layers & layers of peeling paint. I think I may try to sand down or scrap as much of the peeling paint as I can & try to re-paint and see how it looks. I'll try it on one panel to see how it goes. Should I do this by hand or rent one of those orbital sanders. Any ideas of the sandpaper grid I should use. I guess I'll try to start with 120 or so, see if that takes anything off and smooth it down before painting with a finer paper like 220. Thanks.

[dpb]

Just go buy a $65 Porter Cable orbital w/ the PSA (pressure sensitive) not grip-it base (because you can buy a roll of PSA disks @ 1/2 to

1/3rd the price of the velcro-sticky ones) and start w/ 60 grit after hand scraping as much loose as can. You don't want more than about 80 or maybe 100 at most anyway for painting an exterior finish -- more is actually too smooth and won't bond as well as a little bit rougher and the paint will flow and hide the scratches. Painting isn't like a clear coat finish where it accentuates any scratch.

Depending on what the panels are made of and how the door was constructed, you may find them to be sound enough or not. If not, and particularly if they're hardboard instead of plywood, look carefully and see if there is a removable quarter-round or other moulding on the interior to allow you to remove and replace a panel. Even if there isn't, you can take a sharp chisel and remove the moulding formed on the edge and replace the panel, then use a piece of quarter round or other moulding to holde the panel in place. Where there's a will, there's a way... :)

[Rich]

Take a look at

Rich

[DT]

Clopay makes one in their Coachman Collection and possibly other lines. The particular window style is called RE13. Here is a web page that shows all the windows selections:

Home Depot handles Clopay. I don't think it is a vinyl door, why are you specifying that type?

[yourname]

equaldoor.com