Guide for Buying New Garage Door

August 16, 2022

The front exterior of your home, particularly the garage doors, can contribute significantly to curb appeal. Learn about the options, price, and insulation quality before buying a garage door.

Your garage door gives your home the best possible first impression, curb appeal, and overall attractiveness. The latter is especially true of recent suburban construction. Many feature garages that take up to 30% of the front face and are built for drive-right accessibility.

Getting started

Take a deep breath if you’re prepared to research styles and possibilities for a new garage door because there are several options.

Before deciding which garage door is appropriate for your house, there are a lot of questions you need to ask yourself.

What garage door style do you like? What is the size of your garage door? And what is the cost of garage door installation?

Fortunately, a lot of manufacturer websites have digital visualisation tools that can help you narrow down options to get started. You can upload a picture of your home and add hundreds of designs, window shapes, and colours with these interactive tools. Once you’re done, submit the manufacturer your design for a personalised quote.

Although different manufacturers have their own unique procedures for assembling garage doors, the fundamentals are as follows:

A straightforward steel, fibreglass, or engineered wood exterior layer characterises single-layer construction. Simple doors are inexpensive, light, and gentle on springs. Their insulation properties are insignificant.

A layer of rigid polystyrene board with an insulating value between R-4 and R-7 is surrounded by an inner and outer skin that are sandwiched around each other in a double-layer design.

For maximum rigidity and insulating values that surpass R-15, premium construction uses inner and outer layers of premium steel, wood, or fibreglass layered around a thick layer of polystyrene or polyurethane insulation.

Costs and Types of garage doors

With so many material choices, it’s necessary to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each type of garage door, considering factors like cost, insulating value, and basic information. Keep in mind that when it comes to insulation, the higher the R-value, the better. So, if you ask yourself how to choose a garage door to your home or how much is a garage door installation in Canada here is your answer.

Steel garage doors

Steel garage doors have heavy-gauge exterior layers that can be fashioned into standard frame-and-panel designs or embossed to resemble stucco or even wood grain. The appearance of carriage doors is created by overlays like crossbuck patterns and mouldings. Some types are rated to withstand gusts of 120 mph or more, while foam cores offer strength and insulating qualities.

Most steel doors are practically maintenance-free and can be purchased with factory-applied coatings. Numerous manufacturers provide countless colour options. Seeking a do-it-yourself project? You can get your door prepped and paint it yourself.

Heads up: Steel can dent and is hard to repair.

Fiberglass garage doors

Fiberglass doors are known for their resistance to dents, moisture, insects, warping and changes in humidity. Thick outer skins of fiberglass surround an inner foam core and a steel framework that provides strength and stability. Fiberglass excels at mimicking the colours and grain patterns of real woods such as cherry, oak and mahogany.

The resistance of fiberglass doors to dents, dampness, insects, warping, and variations in humidity is well recognised. An inner foam core is surrounded by thick fiberglass exterior skins, and a steel framework that provides strength and stability is placed inside. When it comes to recreating the hues and grain patterns of real woods like cherry, oak, and mahogany, fiberglass excels.

Be aware that single-layer versions may be fragile; an insulating layer improves stiffness.

Wood garage doors

All-wood garage doors constructed of moisture-resistant cedar, redwood, and cypress provide curb appeal unlike anything else, although not being as robust as steel or as durable as fibreglass. But keep in mind that even wood is available in a range of prices and quality. The greatest doors have panels and frames made entirely of wood. Choose polystyrene backing to increase insulation.

Be warned: Regular refinishing is required for real wood.

Aluminum Frame garage doors

These doors have tempered glass or acrylic panels set in anodized aluminium frames, giving them a modernist feel. The result is modern and beautiful thanks to options for painted or powder-coated frame finishes and glass kinds. Low-E and insulating glass improve thermal performance if they are available.

Heads up: Glass panels can be fragile.

Composite Wood garage doors

Polystyrene serves as the sturdy, insulating core of this sandwich-style design, which is covered with composite wood. Panels constructed of composite wood are composed of wood fibres and waterproof resins. For the panels, many producers employ reclaimed wood fibres, adding a little touch of greenness.

Composite wood, which is moulded with grain patterns, can be challenging to differentiate from real wood. Composite doors won’t split, crack, or rot, in contrast to wood. Composite doors can be painted or stained to order or arrive factory completed.

Be aware that it can cost almost as much as real wood.

Vinyl garage doors

While the least expensive variants do not have a foam core, standard construction involves layers of robust, waterproof vinyl surrounding an inner core of insulation. Vinyl doors are incredibly strong yet being lightweight and resistant to decay and insects. Scratches are hidden because colours are present throughout the layers of the vinyl.

Vinyl is more resilient to dents and off-target Frisbees than steel, and many versions are covered by lifetime warranties. Vinyl doors can end up being more affordable in the long term than steel doors.

Be aware that PVC is not thought to be environmentally friendly