Selecting the Right Garage Door for Your Business

What type of door is most appropriate for the intended usage?

• Sectional Steel – Found on most standard garage doors.
• Sectional Aluminum – Typically found on service bay applications.
• Rolling Steel – Typically found in applications where a room needs to be sealted off for emergencies, such as warehouses and manufacturing plants.
• Canister door – Most commonly found on storage units.

Does the garage door need to be insulated?
How much insulation are you needing and is this vital to your door selection? Do you want a seal placed around the door to reduce wind? These are important pieces of information for your manufactuer’s distributor to know.

What type of material is the door frame made of? Wood, Steel or Concrete?
For wood jambs, there will be a bracket mount for the track. A reverse angle mount will be used on steel or concrete jambs.

How much clearance is there above the top of the garage door opening?
How much headroom do you want to take up? If you have extra headroom you may want to utilize that space instead of using a standard track. Some options you may consider would include: having your door go straight up and down, having the door go up and then backwards, use of a standard track or a low headroom installation.

What level of wind load does your garage door need?
Many counties require a garage door to be wind loaded when it is being used on a new building or building remodel that requires a permit. You may also decided that you simply want extra strength for your door, because of the potential of damaging winds. Commercial garage doors should be properly braced. This is becomes even more critical on larger doors. It is important to note that hardware, rollers and spring cycles are also critical factors in the life of a door. Investing in a higher cycle spring may save you money down the road, since commercial springs are are more costly and difficult to change out than on a residential door.

What type of garage door windows are needed?
Commercial garage door windows may consist of one or two small windows or a full view section that is made up of one or two sections of the door. Utilize windows to increase interior lighting and exterior visibility.