All Four Seasons Garage Door Repair Kennesaw GA | Choosing your Commercial Door
There is a wide array of types and styles of commercial garage doors, including folding, sliding, sectional and roll-up designs. Because of its size and weight, a commercial garage door is intended only for use by businesses such as auto repair shops, warehouses and airports.
While folding doors are commonly used for airplane hangars, the two most common types of commercial garage doors in the U.S. are the swinging, or “carriage-style” doors and the overhead design that either rolls up or has multiple horizontal sections hinged together. The overhead design is equipped with rollers that permit the door to slide along twin tracks.
A heavyweight torsion spring, designed to wrap around a torsion bar, assists in counterbalancing the door’s weight and enables the door to be lifted either manually or with the aid of a small electric motor. Without the aid provided by the torsion spring the door would be far too heavy to be lifted by either a person or even a large motor.
Carriage-styles doors have become increasing popular in recent years and these doors imitate, as the name implies, the swinging-style doors of yesteryear, but function with the same basic mechanical advantage as the overhead door. Typically, carriage-style doors function like a very large pair of French doors seen in residential applications. Carriage-style commercial garage doors are typically made of metal or wood and hang on hinges attached to the door jambs, just like a standard entryway door.
Swinging garage doors have high esthetic appeal because of the strong vertical lines of the design which tend to make the huge garage doors look a little less conspicuous. Swinging commercial doors tend to be more energy-efficient as the doors seal better at the top and only have a single joint in the middle, where the two doors meet when in the closed position. However, carriage-style doors do require the most clearance of all commercial garage doors. For example, if a vehicle is parked too close to the door there will not be enough room to open the door. Additionally, carriage-style garage doors require more time to unlock, open, close and lock than overhead doors, and swinging doors are more expensive to automate.
Sectional commercial garage doors, commonly called overhead doors, are typically the most popular solution for most commercial applications. Like residential overhead garage doors, sectional commercial doors are an assembly of hinged panels which move up under the ceiling of the garage bay. A torsion spring, which stores and releases energy when the spring is wound or unwound, respectively, is located overhead and supports most of the weight of the door. Sectional commercial garage doors can be used in standard, high or full vertical-lift applications, contingent upon how much headroom is available.
There are several advantages to sectional commercial garage doors and sectionals are available in several different materials, including, polycarbonate, steel and aluminum. Sectional garage doors are typically better for applications which demand insulation or glazing, as the panels can be filled with insulation. Unlike roll-up doors, sectional garage doors provide for glazing the entire door, making sectionals ideally suited for businesses like car washes, retail establishments, auto repair facilities and service stations and anywhere light transmission and high visibility are important.
Sectional garage doors do have more working components than a roll-up door, creating more maintenance issues. However, components for sectional doors are readily available and easier to replace than with a one-piece roll-up door. Sectional doors will generally be less expensive to purchase than roll-up doors, however, installation’s costs are higher, due again to the increased amount of components.
Sectional doors are normally less commercial-looking than other styles of commercial garage doors and can be ribbed, flush, raised and come in a wide variety of colors. Sectional doors also permit for various window configurations, whereas roll-up doors do not allow for windows. Window options for sectional commercial garage doors include as many as 16 lites in numerous shapes, configurations and decorative styles from traditional to contemporary.