New Garage Doors

I got a new garage doors installed this weekend. I really like how they turned out.

I have been shopping for a new door for some time. The doors that came with the house, were in bad shape from the start. They had a crack on one of the sections, which only got worse as the nuts on the side loosened over time. I had an enforcement rod placed in, some new hinges installed, and the spring repaired few times. All temporary measures, because I knew I will eventually get a new door.

Then last year the opener started to be flaky. The curved arm had trouble sliding down the rail when opening the door, and it needed a little push to go over a troubled spot. When one day earlier this year my mom pressed the remote button sooner than I could nudge the door up as it was opening, I think something broke in that arm as it would not longer open. Even with that little push. Since then, we had to manually open and close the door. After a few months it became old, and I just parked the car outside. We opened the garage only when we absolutely had to get something in and out.

Shopping for the new door was a long process for me. I started some time this summer. I looked at different styles, materials, and companies. There are abundance of choices for each of those. Sometimes too many choices can be so overwhelming!

For materials, I looked at pretty much all options at first: wood, fiberglass, and steel. Wood look great. I drove through some neighborhoods off of 2222, the upscale ones, that have several houses with wood doors. They looked great. But in that area. In my neighborhood there were none like that. They would stood out. And I didn't like that idea. But the 2 determining factors were: 1) price. Those doors cost $10K! 2)They would have to be treated at least once every 3 years. Maybe even every year. No way I was doing that! The fiberglass doors I quickly abandoned. They can crack with an impact, which for being in the garage, where there is "stuff", I didn't feel is safe. They have wood grain on them, but still have some shine to them, so to me that looked fake. On a large door like that. Maybe entry door would be better. That was the same reason why I didn't like steel doors with wood grain look. So, the solution was steel door in regular colors, but nicer design.

Since my house has some arch windows, I new I would like that on the garage door. And I didn't want any windows. I don't spend hours working in the garage, so I didn't need extra daylight in there. And I wanted insulated ones. In the summer the garage was getting way to hot, and some of that heat was making it into the house. The style that I liked the most was Amarr's Carriage House style, CLASSICA, Tuscany collection. I just needed to find the best deal on them.

I got some dozen or so quotes from different companies. Some didn't even work with Amarr, so the selection was getting smaller. I went with Hutchinson, which are actually the same company as Cedarpark Overhead Doors. They've been around for some time, had decent reviews, and best price. They just wouldn't paint the doors for me, and I knew I wanted two tones to make the arch stand out. So I had them order and deliver the insulated door, I painted, ordered the decorative hardware (because they were charging 5x more than Lowes) and then they came back to install it. I also got a new opener as part of the deal. The total cost, for door/opener/labor/paint/handles was around $1670. A bit pricey, but it had to be done, and I love the result!