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.