Your garage door probably isn’t something you think about very often, I mean, you press the button on the remote and it opens and closes, so everything’s working fine, right?
But maybe you should pay more attention to your garage door, after all:
- It’s the largest moving component of your home;
- It represents 30‑40% of your home’s façade;
- 70% of homeowners use their garage door as the main point of entrance to the home.
Like we said before, as long as it opens and closes properly there’s no problem, right? Wrong! Here are seven annoyances that might make you want to change your garage door.
Getting cold
If you, like many other people, use your garage door for something other than parking your car or storage, you need to feel comfortable in it. Spending time in a cold, damp garage isn’t fun for anyone. Choose a new garage door with at least an R‑12 level of thermal insulation and adequate weather-stripping to ensure you can use your garage comfortably.
Endless maintenance
If you’re getting fed up of having to spend your weekends sanding down and re-painting your garage door, maybe it’s time to think about upgrading it. Most garage door manufacturers now offer weather-resistant garage doors with baked-on paint, meaning you get to spend your weekends relaxing! Ask your garage door expert about how many coats of paint have been applied to the door, and the type of galvanization you need to prevent premature rusting.
Struggling to open the door
Most modern garage doors come with electric garage door openers. These door openers replace human strength, so they are only supposed to lift up and push down the same weight as you would yourself. If you’re struggling to open or close your garage door it may not be well-balanced.
You should only need to use one hand to open and close your garage door, a well-balanced door should weigh 8‑10 lbs.
Getting tired of the sight of it
Your garage door represents a huge amount of your home’s façade, so the style should tie in with the rest of your home, if you can, choose windows that match the windows in your front door. A good-looking garage door will improve your curb appeal, and if you’re planning on selling your home, will sell your home faster.
Too noisy
We understand that a noisy garage door opener is not always top of your list of priorities, but think about the safety of your family: The source of the noise could actually be a sign of something more serious.
It will only take you a couple of minutes to identify the source of the noise, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing it yourself, you can hire a garage door expert to perform a tune‑up service call.
Endless repairs
If you feel like you’re constantly having to repair your garage door, you probably need to change your garage door system. According to this Remodeling Magazine article, a new garage door is the third best return on investment when renovating. If you invest $1,650, you’ll get back 91.5% of your investment if you sell your home in the following 12 months.
If you look at the figures a little closer, a $1,650 investment on a $250,000 house is actually only 0.7% of the home’s value. Seems like a worthwhile investment to me!
Broken door opener
There’s nothing more irritating than having faulty equipment, in fact, a significant amount of service calls to garage door experts is about electric door openers. If your garage door opener is getting on a bit, and isn’t working as reliably as you would like, you should change it.
Since 1993, electric door openers have been equipped with two automatic reverse systems and a rolling code system so that your access code cannot be stolen, increasing the security of your garage. You can now even buy door openers that can be operated from your smartphone!
You might want to also consider investing in a door opener with an emergency battery so you can still access your garage if there’s a power cut.
If you’re thinking about buying a new garage door
Contact us at 508-966-0242, you can also send us a request for an online quotation.
If you’ve already got an idea about the kind of garage door you’re looking for, try out our Design Centre tool and upload a photo of your home to see what your new garage door will look like. Or, browse our image gallery for inspiration.
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