How To Pick The Right Garage Door Style For Your House
Picking the right garage door style for your home involves many considerations. You will wish to consider the aesthetic and colour, but also the characteristics that facilitate your lifestyle, safety, security, and budgetary needs.
Here we look at the essential steps and factors that should guide and inform your buying making decision.
Personal Style
Everyone has their style and tastes, and your garage door style can offer an extension of these. When pondering upon the best design for your house, you should think about what style goes best with your home’s architecture and location.
If you live in a modern city or town, then maybe the contemporary clean lines of sectional garage doors will work best with their long horizontal panels. Sectional and roller garage doors can have a handleless exterior for the most immaculate look.
If you reside in a traditional village, a garage door with raised panels will likely complement the surroundings. Your streets are probably lined with garages that have up and over garage doors, but this shouldn’t deter you from choosing automatic garage doors if convenience is your highest priority.
Houses in rural locations can opt for timeless carriage house side hinged garage doors. Decorative handles or hinges can accompany these.
Colour Choice
The colour of garage doors greatly influences whether they will blend in or stand out. If you are looking for garage doors that will blend in, then you should avoid vivid colours. Homes and garages built from red brickwork work well with subtle colours such as beige or tan. A rule of thumb is to consider matching the garage door colour to your home’s window frame colour rather than the colour of your front door.
If you are looking to make a design statement, almost any RAL colour is available as a finish. You can also opt for wood-grain textures for units made of any material, including metal and PVC.
Safety Features
It’s important to ensure that the garage door style you want has the safety features you need. Safety features are an essential consideration for automatic garage doors. Options include obstruction sensors that stop and reverse the operation if your car, a person, or object is in the entryway. Finger guards are also available if you have young and curious children.
Further safety features include keypad entry and secure remotes with rolling codes and frequencies.
Materials
The material of garage doors offer different advantages and disadvantages:
- Timber/wood – These create a rustic and traditional look that is beautiful and sophisticated. However, wood is expensive and, while it can be cut to any size, it requires annual maintenance that might include stripping, painting, or staining. Popular wood species include Cedar, Larch, and Hemlock.
- Steel – These require less maintenance compared to wood, and they are relatively affordable. Numerous styles exist, and they can be insulated with Intellicore or polystyrene. Steel is sturdier than aluminium, but it can rust if it is dented or scratched.
- Aluminium – There are many designs, and you will have almost no maintenance. Aluminium is rust-proof but slightly less durable than steel. It is light, which makes garage doors easier to operate and puts less strain on your garage structure, the door tracks, and the opener.
- Fibreglass or PVC – These can crack or split if hit hard enough. They are more expensive than metal alternatives but affordable compared to wood.
Additional Features
You must consider how you are going to use your garage space. Are you going to park in it every day, is it somewhere to store equipment or belongings, or will it be used as a workshop?
The quietest and latest electric garage doors use nylon track drives, which is a definite bonus if your garage is attached to your home. If the space is used as a workshop or gym, you might want to choose tempered frosted or clear glass panels to allow natural light.
The R-value of garage doors denotes their thermal efficiency, and options include single skin and double skin constructions that help keep the cold outdoors during winter and the heat outdoors during summer. The higher the R-value, the better level of insulation. An R-value of 7 is ideal for non-heated garages attached to your home. An R-value of 10 will help improve the thermal efficiency of your home and lower your energy bills, mainly if there is a room situated above the garage space. An R-value of 14 is ideal for garages used as an extra room for the house.
You can get a price for supply and professional installation from WM Garage Doors. Don’t hesitate to contact our team for further advice and assistance.