A garage door is an important aspect of your home, especially if your garage is an attached model like most garages along the Front Range. A garage provides a barrier from Denver's unpredictable and fast changing weather, security from possible intruders, and insulation against the cold, which can affect your energy bills. Furthermore, as one of the most visible areas of your home, your garage door is also an important design element when it comes to how a passerby judges your home (the all important "curb appeal"). In other words, there is a lot more to choosing a garage door than most people realize.
Choosing the Right Type of Denver Garage Door
A Denver garage doors need to be functional, as well as look good. When it comes to functionality, the first thing to consider is how your door opens.
Tilt-Up Doors—Older doors are often the tilt-up variety, raising in a single section that swings out and then up into the open space above your garage. While they might bring up feelings of nostalgia, they're inefficient when it comes to space. Because they swing out, they reduce the amount of usable space in your driveway, and because they can't fit behind the door frame, they aren't as efficient at keeping out the weather as other types of garage doors. For these reasons, replacing your tilt-up door with a sectional model is a good idea if you're buying a new garage door anyway.
Sectional Doors—If your home was built in the last 50 years or so, chances are you've got a sectional garage door. These doors are built in hinged sections that "roll up" into the open space above your garage. Unlike tilt-up doors, they take up the least amount of space in your driveway and garage, and since they can fit behind the door frame, they are far superior to tilt-up doors when it comes to keeping out everything from rain produced by quick moving mountain thunderstorms to wind driven snow from a Front Range blizzard.
Denver Garage Door Design
Once you've settled on a garage door type, the next step is deciding on a design. A basic garage door consists of flat, windowless panels, and is your most budget-friendly choice. From there you can add raised panels, window glass, and even choose from more elaborate designs. Carriage house doors, for example, are all the rage lately and imitate the large swinging doors that used to be found on, you guessed it, carriage houses and barns before the days of automobiles; though modern versions open up, like traditional sectional garage doors in Denver.
Denver Garage Door Materials
Your choice of material when it comes to your garage door is a mixture of style and function. Wood doors are classy, expensive, heavy, insulate well, and are probably the best looking doors around. Pressed, or composite, wood doors are the cheapest, though their low price tag is due to their relative fragility compared to other materials. For most homeowners in the Mile High City, steel is the optimal material for a garage door. It's economical, tough, lightweight, can be purchased in different gauges (or thickness), and provides a stout barrier against intruders for security purposes (as well as from basketballs hurled by kids who think they're Carmelo Anthony, but need to work on their jump shot). Vinyl, fiberglass, and aluminum are other materials that are growing in popularity, and that might be worth a look, as well.
Single, Double, and Triple Layer Denver Garage Doors
Single, double, and triple layer garage doors in Denver refers to the different styles of steel doors you can purchase.
Single layer doors are doors with sections made from a single layer of pressed steel. These are the cheapest steel doors on the market, and the least effective when it comes to R-Value or insulating your garage.
Double layer doors add a layer of polyurethane backing to the steel, increasing the R-value of your door. Upgrading to this level is a good idea if you use your garage as a workshop, recreation area, or anything else that requires you to spend longer amounts of time there during the winter months.
Triple layer doors add a thin layer of steel to the inside of the garage door, as well. It allows for a little more insulation than double layer doors, but primarily the steel is there to protect the insulation from being damaged, ensuring longer life and better performance.
Purchasing the Right Garage Door in Denver for You and Your Home
With all these options to choose from, choosing the right garage door in Denver is a more complicated process than most homeowners bargain for. To determine the right door for you, use your home and how you use your garage to guide you in your search. Is your home upscale or average? What kind of exterior appearance does your home have? What kinds of garage doors dominate your neighborhood? Do you live in a good neighborhood or a rougher one? Do you use your garage as a workshop or as a storage area? Answering these types of questions for yourself, as well as arming yourself with the information above, will give you a leg up when you contact a garage door installer about installing a new garage door on your Denver metro area home.
Matt Goering, formerly a carpenter and house painter, is a freelance writer for the home improvement industry who has published over 600 articles.
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