wooden garage door

[Shanghai McCoy]

Time to replace the door on my 2-car garage. All I'm seeing for replacement doors are metal. Does anyone sell wooden garage doors anymore?

[Edwin Pawlowski]

Yes, but few people still want them. Metal doors with baked on finishes last for decades with no maintenance.

[Blattus Slafaly]

It's not hard to make them.

[SteveBell]

A wood door just went in on a new house near me. I didn't see the inside of it, but I assume it's a metal frame with wood cladding. It is in sections so it rolls up.

I *assume* that the price is right up there, since I mostly see them on high-end houses. I'm *sure* that they're heavy and will require a beefy opener.

[Ralph Mowery]

The door should have springs on it so it should not take too much to open it. I moved into a house about 4 years ago that had a wooden frame door with some of the 'paper' wood panels in it. Not sure what to call that kind of panel. It is heavy, but a standard door opener would open it just fine. Had it removed as it was starting to get into poor shape and installed a metal door. It was about 17 feet wide I think.. Big enough to get two cars in.

[aemeijers]

Not a lot of construction up here in the frozen economic wasteland of Michigan lately, but in going to garage sales in the beige subdivisions, I mostly see traditional 2-layer wood doors with foam cores. Hollow metal/fiberglass doors are a entry-level thing here, since they are hard to insulate, and most people want to keep the garage a little warmer than the outside. Only rich people heat them any more, but leakage from the house and hot engine blocks/tires can keep them from freezing hard until it goes sub-zero. In residential sizes, you don't need an oversize/commercial style opener unless door has a fancy applied surface like they do on TOH, like to mimic carriage house doors or something. Plain old chain drive Craftsman or similar seem to be the most common here. I have a 2-layer wood 2-car wide, 7 feet tall, and when the power goes out, it only takes one hand to open, even though it is 25 years old with no apparent upkeep done. Strong enough springs and a careful installation is the key.

One of my mother's previous houses in central Indiana had a fiberglass door, and it was utter crap. Rattled, leaked, drummed in the wind, kept racking and jamming, etc. My house in Louisiana has a 1-bay metal door, but it gets little use (used as a woodshop, not for parking), and it almost never freezes hard there. They do seem to be more common down there, but even fancy houses usually have carports, with maybe one bay with a door to store the pilferable toys.

-- aem sends...

[Rich]

The opener is the same you balance the weight with the springs.

Rich

[dpb]

SteveBell wrote: ...

No, just appropriately-sized counter springs.

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[SteveBell]

You do know that openers come with different horsepower ratings, don't you? The reason is to handle different loads.

When the door is new and balanced, everything is peachy. You can open the biggest door with the smallest opener. Heck, you can do it with one finger. As the door ages and the springs weaken, the opener has to work harder. The heavier the door, the harder it will have to work.

The obvious answer is to rebalance the door.

But no one ever rebalances a door, except maybe you and me. I have people asking me all the time why their garage door doesn't open right. It's because the springs need to be tightened. I tell them they can either call a garage door company[1], or I can twiddle the adjusters on the opener. They almost always opt for twiddling.

Thus you plan for the average person's stupidity by installing a bigger opener.

[1]I don't mess with garage door springs. I've seen the damage they cause when they let go. I've also pulled muscles in my back lifting doors with loose springs. Even the cheap aluminum doors weigh a ton.

[dpb]

... Well, they're not needed if the door is balanced properly...they're mostly for advertising.

As for not adjusting them, you're supposed to be the handyman aren't you?

Never been a problem for just this average farmer... :)

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[dpb]

... By that I'm meaning the one on the solid wood door I bought for the folks was purchased in the early 80's long before there was such an emphasis on the size--it's a 1/2hp and has worked and continues to function for nearly 30 years now.

I'd say that demonstrates one doesn't have to have a large opener just because the door is heavy if the load springs are correctly matched to the door.

--

[SMS]

Are you referring to a swing-up door or a roll-up door?

The swing up wood doors are a real PITA. They're very heavy, they constantly break springs, they warp, and they need to be planed periodically when they expand and hit the sides of the building.

A roll-up wood door shouldn't be too bad. Clopay makes roll-up wood doors, and I'm sure many other companies make them too.

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