FAQ'S
All our residential steel doors are already finish painted and ready for years of maintenance-free beauty. However, if you want to apply another color, clean the surface with a powder cleanser like Comet. Rinse the surface thoroughly and allow it to dry. Use an acrylic latex exterior paint and apply it with a brush. Pay careful attention not to paint the sections together as this could severely damage your door upon opening.
Yes! Our doors come in many custom sizes to fit most openings. Check our brochures or give a call to get specifics. Occasionally, additional woodwork will be needed to provide the best look and fit.
In a well balanced door, most of the lifting is accomplished through the spring system and only a small amount of force should be required for opening & closing. A 1/2 HP garage door opener, such as our Raynor Aviator II belt drive, works well for most residential doors up to 10' 6" tall. Commercial doors will usually require a heavier duty operator designed for specific applications.
Yes, we do! For those who like to take on projects themselves, we sell a wide variety of garage door and opener parts. Feel free to give us a call or come by our store.
*Important note on Spring Replacement: If you are planning on replacing the springs yourself, make sure to bring in your old one so we can match it up. Springs are designed specifically to match the weight of your door, not just the dimensions. Many factors go into determining the weight of the door and the design of the spring, so it's best if you bring in the old one to get the best match. Also, if your door has two springs, it is best to replace both of them, even if only one is broke. Springs are rated in cycles so the other spring is likely to break very soon.
Headroom is the distance from the top of the door to the ceiling (or lowest obstruction). Extension springs require less headroom than torsion springs. The Aspen series doors with torsion springs require 13" of headroom for a standard installation. If necessary, a double track low headroom kit can be installed which will allow the door to be installed with as little as 8" of headroom. For our ShowCase and BuildMark series, standard headroom is 12" and approximately 6" with a double track low headroom kit.
For residential new construction, the finished opening size should be the same as the dimensions of door. For example, if your wanting a 9x7 door for your project, your finished opening should be 9'0" wide and 7'0" tall. A little smaller is ok, and some people prefer a 8'10" wide opening. For this example, we prefer a 9'0" width to allow for a wider entry. The weather stripping around the sides and top are designed to also be a door stop and are about 1/4" thick so they work very well as a surface for the door to seal up against. The only concern is that this may allow a very small amount of day light to transmit through the vinyl weather stripping at the edges. This is not a problem and is in fact very secure, providing a good seal. However, some people mistakenly believe the door isn't sealed because they can see some light around the edges. So ultimately it's personal preference, so long as you don't build the opening larger than the door.
For commercial new construction it's typical to build the finished opening to the desired dimensions (ex. 10'0"x10'0") and then order the door two inches wider. The extra 2 inches is called "lap".