Choosing a commercial garage door is similar to choosing a door for your home. The exception is that the primary focus will be on the function and mechanics of the garage door as opposed to the appearance.
- 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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
