subject: What To Look For In A Garage Door [print this page] Looking at garage doors? The nice thing about garage doors is that they can be sold independently of the garage itself. Thus, if you are building a garage and can't afford an expensive door initially, garage doors will be available to replace your original door when the time comes. Garage doors come in such a wide variety of styles and prices today, that almost anything you can imagine in garage doors probably exists. Whether wood or steel, with or without glass windows, hinged or solid surface, the styles of garage doors are nearly endless.
Residential garage doors can make all the difference to how useful your garage is to you. A garage door that does not open easily is just no fun, and will effectively turn your garage into a large storage facility. Now, maybe that is what you're looking for in a garage, but even then, you'll want easy access to the garage. A side door that is only wide enough for a person will probably not get the job done even if you never move a car in or out of your garage. You're bound to want to store some rather large items in the garage, so you'll want to look at garage doors that look good and are easy to open.
Prices vary with the type of garage doors that you're looking at of course, and the biggest savings on a door comes with a "lift it yourself" version. Yes, manufacturers of garage doors still make doors that you can work yourself without mechanical assistance, but prices of openers and mechanical door systems have come down to where it simply makes sense to get an automatic door. If you're not in a hurry, you can certainly wait for deals to be advertised and low prices to be available on all styles of automatic doors.
If sale prices of the fancy styles are still a little high for you, there are some plain garage doors that can be had for fairly low prices. A solid surface door will cost less than a hinged door, as there are fewer moving parts to the door, so manufacturing is easier. The final assembly process for these styles of garage doors simply involves putting the pieces together and fixing them in place, then hooking them up to the rails so the automatic door opener can pull the whole thing up at once. Of course, you'll have to leave a bit more room in front of the garage for the door to swing out, but this should not be a problem.
So if you're in the market for garage doors today, your choices are many and deals will probably be available for the styles and quality that you are most interested in. Start with an online search, as most manufacturers have a website to show off their garage doors. Some even have animations showing how their doors work, so you can see just what it will look like.
