How Choosing The Right Garage Door Can Make Your Home More Eco-Friendly

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In a world where the environmental costs of human activity are becoming more apparent every year, more and more people are looking into ways to make their homes more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient. However, while basic measures such as installing roof insulation and low-flow toilets are effective, there are many more ways to make your home greener that many homeowners never consider.

A surprisingly effective way to green up your home is by installing an eco-friendly garage door. However, finding a garage door that will effectively shrink your home's carbon footprint can be challenging. If you're looking for a new garage door and want to make sure your door has serious environmental credentials, ask yourself the following questions as you shop around:

Is the garage door made of sustainable materials?

One of the easiest ways to choose an eco-friendly garage door is by picking out a door made from recyclable materials. Choosing a recycled aluminium or steel door can be a good first step—these doors are made partially or completely from recycled material, and they have much less embodied energy and carbon than doors made of 'fresh' metal.

However, if you want to go a step further (and get yourself a beautiful garage door in the process), consider a timber door made from sustainable timber. These doors are made from wood taken from tree plantations rather than wild, old-growth trees, making them much less environmentally costly. Plantation trees are also effective carbon sinks while they are still growing, keeping the embodied carbon costs of your door at a minimum.

Is the garage door properly insulated?

If your home has an attached garage, the space in the walls that accommodates your garage door must be properly insulated; if it isn't, heat exchange will occur through your garage door, forcing you to rely more on your air conditioning/heating to keep your home at a comfortable temperature, with all the considerable energy and carbon costs that entails.

To keep your home's energy usage reasonably low, any attached garage should be fitted with a properly insulated door. Most modern steel and aluminium doors are filled with insulating foam or other materials, and inexpensive plastic doors can actually be surprisingly effective insulators if they are reasonably thick. Timber doors also provide excellent insulation, due to both their thickness and the natural heat-insulating properties of wood.

However, even the most insulated garage door will not provide much protection from heat exchange if it isn't properly installed, and the gaps between the door and the door frame aren't properly sealed with weatherproof stripping and flashing. You can fit these rather fiddly components yourself, but if you want to ensure the weatherproofing is fitted properly, you should bring in professional garage door installers to handle the task.

Will the garage door stand the test of time?

it's all well and good buying the most eco-friendly garage door you can imagine, but it will be useless if it falls apart and you have to replace it in a few years. For a garage door to be truly green, it must be capable of withstanding the punishment of frequent use and constant exposure for many years.

Fortunately, spotting a door that will hold its own isn't complicated. Metal doors should be well assembled and properly treated with rustproof coatings (such as paint or galvanised zinc) if they are made of steel. Timber doors must receive similar treatments to prevent them from rotting. Choosing a long-lasting plastic door can be more challenging, but you would do well to choose a door made from plastics that don't perish and weaken in sunlight, such as uPVC.

For more information about garage door options, reach out to a garage door company.

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15 August 2019

Garage Doors: Dealing with Faulty Springs

When my garage door stopped working, I didn't have the first idea of what the problem might be. I contacted a local garage door repair service and they said they would send a contractor out to examine the door. Once the contractor had taken a look, he reported that the springs within the door mechanism were broken. He then got to work repairing the problem. Within an hour or two, my garage door was operational again. The contractor explained that he thought I had been opening the door incorrectly and placing too much strain on the springs. He gave me lots of useful tips which will help to avoid this problem in the future.