The first key aspect of choosing a new garage door is finding out which type of door best suits your needs. Garage doors typically come in three main types: tilt doors, sectional doors, and roller doors. Glideaway offers all three of these solutions, as well as other door types such as hinged doors or stacking doors. These three main types will usually be able to meet the needs of both the customer and the application of the door.
The main element that can determine which door is required is the available space. Do you have enough space for a sectional door, or do you need a tilt door? Each door type will suit a set of needs, with their own pros and cons. The final door type is purely a matter of choice. For more information about door types, check out this blog post.
2. DESIGN & STYLE
The garage door is usually the largest opening on a house. It generally receives a lot of attention from street front viewers. The style and design of your garage door has an enormous impact on the look of your property. While roller doors come in relatively universal standard style, the variations for sectional door and tilt door solutions is impressive. When choosing a door, make sure you choose a design or style that will suit your house, and the statement you intend to make.
At Glideaway, our design and style of our sectional doors are set out in two formats:
Classic Series: For a classic garage door that will meet the needs of most, the Classic Series has a solution for you.
Designer Series: If you want to make a statement with your door – a true eye-catcher – then look no further than our Designer Series doors.
3. MATERIAL
The material of your garage door is an extremely important factor to consider. The material you choose can have a major effect on the lifetime of your door. Additionally, factors such as weight, finishing, upkeep, and installation has an impact. For more on this, read our Door Lifetime section below.
Here at Glideaway, we believe quality garage doors deserve quality material. For our Coloursteel doors, we use 0.55mm thickness, a thicker grade than other doors found on the market. Other materials Glideaway commonly use are Zincalume (0.55mm) and aluminium. These are available in a range of thicknesses and finishes, across all profiles. Aluminium is the best material for garage doors with high exposure to the elements and looks great with a powder-coat finish.
Be aware of the long-term effect of weathering on wooden doors. Wood provides an impressive finish to your garage door. Over time though the wood panelling of almost all types of wood will cup, bow, twist, become unstuck, fade, get mouldy and a number of other unwanted disadvantages. Please keep this in mind when thinking about purchasing a wooden garage door.
4. DOOR LIFETIME
The door lifetime is a highly important factor that can easily be overlooked initially. The material chosen (wood vs steel), the environmental conditions of the garage door and the amount of use the door receives all influence whether a door lasts 5 or 60 years. You can usually expect the lifetime of a well-maintained garage door to be 10-15 years. A quality door, such as a Glideaway ‘Duke’ profile garage door, will ordinarily always meet these expectations, and save the hassle of frequent door replacement down the line.
5. FINISH
The finish can be influenced by aspects such as colour matching, your surrounding environment, and certain aesthetically desired fashionable designs. This is 100% up to you, though.
For metal doors, clients will generally decide the colour of their garage door by matching the colour of their front door, roofing, or windows, or occasionally as a contrast colour to the main house colour. Here at Glideaway, we can usually match the desired colour with our Coloursteel range, or our extensive powder-coat range.
If your steel or aluminium door will be located near the coast, Glideaway ALWAYS recommends a powder-coated finish to help greatly extend the life of the garage door. Houses within the salt spray zone will corrode faster due to the salt, wind, and sand, therefore powder-coated doors and hardware is the simplest option to prevent your garage door rusting quickly.
Automation – Glideaway offers Merlin’s wide range of high-quality automatic openers
6. INSULATION
A warm and insulated house is a legal requirement in New Zealand. As one of the largest opening in your house, an insulated garage door can prevent a large amount of heat escaping. Certain areas of New Zealand will require the insulation more than others, as shown on this link.
Glideaway has two main insulation solutions available for a standard sectional garage door, suitable for both insulation and aesthetic requirements. Insulpro Novahush insulation blankets easily fit into your garage door panels, providing an insulation R rating of 1.4, as well as strong acoustic blocking properties. Our other solution – Polystyrene fill insulation, with either a Core-flute or Zincalume backing sheet – has an R rating of 1.8, while still providing a classy finish to the back of your sectional garage door.
7. NEW OPENER
An automatic opener that is less than 10 years old may still be working fine when you look to replace your garage door. However, Glideaway highly recommends replacing your automatic garage door opener at the same time as your garage door. Doing this ensures your door and opener will reliably operate without fault over the coming years. This saves you from having to replace your opener at a later date. Furthermore, a new opener comes with a warranty of 5-7 years, safeguarding you well into the lifetime of your garage door.
8. INSTALLATION
Glideaway highly recommends the installation of your new garage door and/or automatic opener is completed by a competent and experienced installer. While it may be tempting to choose the cheaper option of installing the door yourself, a professionally installed garage door will ensure the safety and longevity of the door is upheld.
Guarantee your springs are tensioned correctly, all moving parts are correctly installed, the garage door accurately fits the opening, and the fixings are adequate, among other benefits by using a professional installer. Furthermore, should a fault be found on a Glideaway garage door that is installed by the customer, the warranty is liable to be voided.
9. ACCESSORIES
Glideaway offers a wide range of customisable features and accessories for sectional and tilt garage doors. Customising your new garage door to your specifications is our speciality. Accessories include windows, available in either window inserts or a complete aluminium sash, frosted, clear, or opaque; external entry keypad, premium seals and powder-coated hardware, among others. Our smart automatic garage door openers, using the Merlin MyQ system, are becoming increasingly popular. They allow you to operate and have control over your garage door right from your phone.
Most Glideaway accessories can be retrofitted at a later date. However, when purchasing it is a great idea to consider which accessories or customisations you feel will best meet your needs for an easy and practical garage door addition.
10. WARRANTY
The warranty included in your new garage door package is important to consider. Faults in production or natural mishaps do occur from time to time. Glideaway offers a 5-year warranty on properly maintained Coloursteel sectional and tilt garage doors, extending to 10 years for an aluminium garage door. All our Merlin automatic openers come with a 5-year warranty, with a 7-year warranty on the MyQ openers. Be sure to check your door warranty. Do get in touch if you have any questions.
Contact us today to discuss solutions for your ideal garage door – click here.
