Roller shutter garage doors

After 30 odd years our old garage door has given up the ghost. I'd like to replace it with an electrically operated, insulated, roller shutter. Price at Wickes for one to fit myself is £1199.

Local paper has an ad offering 'top of the range automatic remote controlled garage door' fitted for £699 including VAT. No company name, just a phone number. When I Google the phone number (01245 3612676) I get loads of hits which refer to local papers all over the south east carrying the same ad. Not a lot of info but I have come across the names Essex Garage Doors and Seguro Garage Doors.

Anybody had any experience of them? Can't help wondering what the catch is. I'm sure there must be one as the price is just too good to be true.

Reply to
Bald eagle
Loading thread data ...

Bear in mind that if you buy a TV aerial and all the accessories from Wickes it will cost more than if you employ a decent installer to supply and install, and the parts he uses will be better.

Bill

Reply to
Bill Wright

While I don't (and wouldn't dare to!) impugn the veracity of what you say in Wright's Aerials country, I wonder if it is equally as true in Inner London? After 35 years of watching aerials fall off London chimneys* my impression is that there are many cowboys down here and precious few honest injuns.

That said, I took one look at Wickes' prices and ordered direct from Blakes for the 2 I fitted in the pat few years. But then I had had the benefit of many episodes of your rigger's diary etc etc :)

*more recently they are rarely fixed to chimneys: bolts into the wall below the gutter seems to be as far as the cowboys are willing to climb
Reply to
Robin

What sort of door is it, though? Probably just an ordinary up-and-over door with a motorised actuator to open and close it.

Before looking for the cheapest price, decide exactly what it is that you want. Look in Yellow Pages for garage door suppliers. There will likely be some local ones with showrooms where you can see various doors.

When I had a new garage built a few years ago, I thought I wanted a roller shutter door until I went and saw some - and was very unimpressed with the way in which the aluminium segments hinge (or rather hook) together - and I ended up with a remote controlled sectional door - not cheap, but infinitely better.

Reply to
Roger Mills

It does sound too good to be true.

I bought and collected one from a factory that makes them up to order - a bit under £500 inc. a couple or so years ago. Which I fitted myself. Fitting is really not that difficult.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

In message , Bald eagle writes

I had one fitted 2 years ago, can't remember how much, certainly more than £699 though, nearer £1200. The good part about it was that the guy measured up and had the width cut so that the side guides fitted so that they were flush with the side of the brick opening. It looks like it was an original fit rather than an add on. The motor drive and mechanics all fit neatly above the door on the inside suspended from the rafters and I have no complaints about it.

The whole job took two guys a morning

Having seen how it was done I would certainly attempt one myself, you may want to take a close look at a few installs before deciding, but anyone with reasonable DIY skills and a strong mate, or two should be OK.

Reply to
Bill

I've fitted two insulated ones, with assistance (2nd for assistant) easily in a day. Cost was about £1000 for about a single width door. They have both worked well for the last 2 or 3 years and were well worth the effort.

Reply to
<me9

In message , snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net writes

Mains failure is a pain as the manual winder takes forever.

Best fitted in a pitched roof garage or one where space has been provided above the door opening.

Key fob *zapper* battery has just needed replacing. 6 years!

The motors are not rated for *industrial* use but adequate for operation

2-3 times per day.

regards

>
Reply to
Tim Lamb

In message , Bald eagle writes

The catch is you have no way of getting in touch with them once you've handed over the readies. "Inc VAT" is a way of implying that they are respectably VAT registered which they may not be.

Reply to
hugh

I know nothing about this/these companies, but there are very few free dinners. If something sounds too good to be true it usually is.

Reply to
soup

harry wrote on 18/12/2011 :

Mine is insulated. There is foam insulation between the inner and outer faces.

Mine has brush types seals built into the guides and a seal with the floor at the bottom. The only part which does let the draft in is along the top - my fault, I just never got around to dealing with that.

Mine has the motor in the middle if the roll, with the control gear in a separate box. It rolls up into a roll of about 9" diameter.

The side guide rails I fitted flush to the inside the front of the garage, so as not to restrict the width.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

In message , Harry Bloomfield writes

Sounds very similar to the one I had fitted, on a hot summers day when all the exterior metal work is hot the inside of the shutter takes a longtime, if at all, to warm up. So I believe that the insulation must be doing something :-)

A big plus point with it is that before I had an up and over door and this restricted where I could have racking mounted, I now have it right up to the doorway.

Reply to
Bill

If it is any help I had a Gliderol manual roller garage door supplied and fitted for £575 by a local company earlier this year. Their current price structure for automated doors is here...

formatting link

Reply to
rbel

Bill used his keyboard to write :

I agree, they are much more compact than an up and over door. In my case the up and over had been on its last legs for several years. I had fixed it numerous times. I priced up the options and the electric roller was not much more than and in some cases cheaper than the other DIY options.

The controller has crashed a couple of times over the years, failing to work via the remote, which has meant my entering by another door to reset it. Other than that, no issues at all.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Our up and over has been about to fail for a quite a while. Don't like it as it takes up too much room inside the garage and unless pushed right up the lower corners are a hazard. I have the scar on my forehead...

How would you reset it if there is no "other door" to allow access to the control unit if the door won't open?

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

Dave Liquorice presented the following explanation :

I suppose I could switch off the main supply to the garage to reset the controller's processor, but all of the electric door makers seem to have a manual cranking system built-in by default in case the whole thing dies or their is a power cut.

Where there is no 'other door', they suggest you install an add-on to link the manual cranking system to the outside of the door.

Mine runs on 24v DC, so I could add some back up batteries, but over the years we have had it, not once I we had a power cut, when I have needed to operate the door. I did once test the hand cranking system, just to see it worked when I first installed it - its a bit of a PITA compared to pressing a button, but it works.

Mine came with two remotes, one in the house, one in the car. I soon added a third wired remote (up/down/stop) in the garage. I then later added a beam sensor across the door level with my car's tow ball, to prevent the door closing unless the ball was clear of the door. It's red LED also serves as a means to see when parking that I have stopped clear of the door.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

I'm trying to make sense of this post, but to no avail ...

Perhaps Bald Eagle would care to clarify ...?

The Chelmsford (01245) phone number is wrong: 01245 3612676 has too many digits and Google does NOT get loads of hits for it. A search for companies in the Chelsmsford area doesn't bring up anybody with a remotely similar number either.

Googling Essex Garage Doors finds:

Essex Garage Doors Ltd

formatting link
Garage Doors Unit D, Briarsford Perry Road Witham Essex CM8 3DZ Tel: 01376 510901

and Seguro Garage Doors finds:

Seguro Garage Doors Ltd

215A Upminster Road South Rainham Essex RM13 9BB Tel: 01277 355377

who also seem to trade as Garage Doors Essex.

formatting link
do have a £699 offer, though:

formatting link
I went back to Essex Garage Doors for a comparison, their web site crashed!)

Witham, by the way, is much nearer Chelmsford than Rainham!

Reply to
Terry Casey

Correct - a typo on my part. Should be 01245 361676. Googling this gives 377 hits, most of which refer to local newspaper ads like the one I saw.

These are the two names to which I refer in my original post and which appear in some of the Google hits, usually the ones that are not local paper ads.

I know.

Reply to
Bald eagle

Gliderol...as seen on tv (Neighbours)

One huge drawback with manual rollers is the 'key left in and door opened' problem - the keys for some makes can be near impossible to source.

20+ years on after having a few Gliderol doors fitted the doors are still in good condition apart from the bottom seal, but the chrome plating on the lock surrounds is clearly only fit for a dry climate as they are all badly pitted. From what I recall the basic design and some of the fittings were imported from Oz, but the plastic coated steel 'Plastisol' was sourced from British Steel (when they still existed)

Probably all made in China now :(

Reply to
The Other Mike

We can disconnect our motor with a simple lever. Then the door can be easily opened manually as it is spring assisted, much like a roller blind.

Paul Mc Cann

Reply to
fred

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.