Posted by admin on Friday, 27 November 2009
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Door Opener, Garage Door Repair, Garage Door Replacement, Garage Door Installation, Garage Door Service, Garage Doors, Garage Door Openers, Garage Door Services
The first step to measuring a garage door for your home is to measure the width and height, which is the measurements you'll need to report to the garage door installation person. But next you need to measure the 'side room', or the space in the room along the front wall that is not taken up by the door. Some garages don't have much, but you'll need at least three to four inches along the side of the opening in order to have space for the vertical metal track. (If you have an old extension spring or torsion spring. You'll need closer to five or six for the newer extension spring systems, though.)
Next you'll need to measure the headroom which is the space between the opening of the door and the ceiling of the garage. The top of the door opening is often called the 'jamb header', and you'll need at least ten inches to a foot of headspace to fit in the opened door. Even more if you plan on installing an electric garage door opener. However, if your garage doesn't have sufficient headspace, you can always invest in special equipment from the garage door service people.
Lastly you'll need to measure the 'backroom'- the distance between the opening and the back wall. It need to be at least 18 inches longer than the door is high, even more for an electric opener.
Posted by admin on Thursday, 26 November 2009
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Door Opener, Garage Door Repair, Garage Door Replacement, Garage Door Installation, Garage Door Service, Garage Doors
If you're battling the elements when it comes to your garage door and leakage, there are more tools in your arsenal than just overall insulation. If wind and water find their way under the cracks of the garage door and the floor, or if you find your garage flooding often or being filled with dust and dirt from the outside, you may want to consider investing in a garage door seal.
Garage door seals easily glue or mount to the floor of your garage to create a seal like the one on your refridgerator- between the door and floor. This is particularly useful if your garage is at the bottom of a hill and prone to flooding, or if you have an uneven garage floor. Water seepage can cause a lot of damage, and a little strip of rubber can go a long way to solving the problem.
Plus, if you live in an area with pest/insect issues, the sealant will keep them out as well. A line of marching ants can't pry their way through a perfect seal.
In addition with all-over, traditional insulation, a garage door seal will also help regulate temperatures inside the garage, keeping your heating and cooling bills up.
Posted by admin on Tuesday, 24 November 2009
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Doors, Garage Door Openers, Garage Door Installation
A customer wrote to us recently:
"Our neighbors remodeled their house recently, including a brand-spanking new system for the garage door opener. Unfortunately, since they had it done, their garage door opener opens our garage as well! The first time it happened, she came over and apologized and made sure to close the door after opening it. She called the company right away to explain the situation and to come out to fix it.
The technician came, took a look, shook his head and said "Huh. I have never seen this in my life." He then proceeded to blame the problem on our garage door, since ours was the older model. Then he left. Without fixing anything.
Then our neighbors stopped caring about it. They wouldn't bother to shut our door after they had opened it, or apologize for disrupting our home and making us unsafe. It also exposes our home to the elements, jacking up our heating prices and making our house freezing.
What can we do??"
The answer is fairly simple, though the garage door technician (which company was he from?) should have known better! Just open the remote at the back and flip several of the switches to change the frequency on their neighbors' opener's projection.
Just goes to show that some companies know what they're doing, and some don't, and that not all new-fangled pieces of equipment are up to par. It's important to do your research before investing in a new system.
Posted by admin on Sunday, 22 November 2009
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Door Opener, Garage Door Repair, Garage Door Replacement, Garage Door Installation, Garage Door Service, Garage Doors
In this day and age, we all know sustainability is important, and finding a 'sustainable' garage door is the responsible thing to do. But in coastal and other high-velocity-wind areas, that takes on a whole new meaning- a garage door can literally save your home during a hurricane or intense storm.
Garage doors are unusually susceptible to wind damage than most other openings on the exterior of a home- this is due to sheer surface area. Two-car garage doors are at even higher risk. Unless you pay for the tested, approved reinforced doors, very high winds can easily pop it out of the garage opening, splaying open your home and making it easy for the wind to damage other parts.
This can lead to a chain reaction of internal pressure, blowing out the roof, supporting walls, or other windows in your home. If you're thinking to yourself "that's not really possible" think about Hurricane Andrew in 1992. With 150-mph winds, Andrew destroyed more than 130,000 homes, leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. And according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the failure of garage doors directly contributed to the damage of homes and buildings.
And international building code has been instituted in the meantime, requiring that at-risk homes have additional bracing on their garage doors, in addition to heavier gauge tracking and other kinds of hardware designed to keep everything in place in the face of hurricane-force winds.
These newer, more exacting building rules were sorely tested in 2004 and 2005, two unusual, record-breaking hurricane seasons. And they will continue to be tested, as global warming adds to the severity of each new hurricane season. It has been proven so far that homes that comply with the codes are better able to bear the load of back-to-back storms, and that homes that didn't obey the codes (or hadn't been remodeled since their institution) took much more damage. IN many cases, the garage doors were blown out completely.
It may not seem to make sense, since reinforced doors use more parts and often environmentally unsound materials to secure a home, but in the end, it is more environmentally responsible, sustainable, and cost-effective to invest a little extra money in securing an at-risk home beforehand. Otherwise, you're left having to rebuild after a total loss, wasting time, money, and resources. If you live in a place that sees frequent storms or is within hurricane range, you should consider getting a garage door replacement to protect your home and ensure your safety.
Posted by admin on Saturday, 21 November 2009
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Door Opener, Garage Door Replacement, Garage Door Service, Garage Doors, Garage Door Openers, Garage Door Repair, Garage Door Services, Garage Door Installation, Los Angeles Garage Door
The history of garages, and garage doors part 5
In parts 1 - 4 we covered how the need for a garage arose, what the original garage doors were made of, and how they were fastened to the garages. How the home garage as opposed to communal garage came to be. And the inventions in garage door technology
Now we will further explore the inventions in garage door materials and how we have come almost full circle.
Overtime garage door materials as with most building materials were upgraded and changed to match the progress of technology has made on building materials. Being that wood were susceptible to the elements and wood rot from all the rain and snow, the sun would bleach them, and the cycle of what try would warp them, this is where technology was used to combat these issues.
In the 1970s Steel garage doors were introduced, being that steel was not a good insulator they sandwiched 2 sheets of steel over steel garage doors were introduced Styrofoam and had a durable insulated door that can be pressed out of a machine in minutes not weeks like wood, and they out lasted wood by many years.
Another new material was "fiberglass" these were light and impervious to the weather but not very pretty, the next step was the invention of composites, such as resin-filled wood, these were slightly more aesthetically appealing and also impervious to the weather. Eventually vinyl-covered aluminum, much like aluminum siding which at the time was widely used, and sold by door-to-door salesman throughout the states. And much like wallpaper to a lamp shade, these vinyl siding garage doors were easy to match to the rest of the vinyl sided house.
Today there is an extremely wide variety of garage doors available on the market from traditional, to custom wood, carriage house designs, modern sleek metal and glass, and everything in between. During the financial boom and the explosion of building growth over the last decade the trend shifted towards classic Carriage House, custom wood and Mediterranean garage doors as homeowners opted for authentic and unique garage doors to represent their homes as opposed to the cookie cutter stamped steel doors made popular in the 70's and 80's. That said Steel has also come a long way Mesa Garage Doors in Southern California has been the leader in the development of steel doors that to the human eye cannot be distinguished from any of their large selection of solid wood doors.
