Why to Choose a Custom Wood Garage Door
Posted by Mark Mend Stern on Tuesday, 29 June 2010
Tags: Garage Door, Garage Doors, custom wood garage doors, Garage Desig, garage construction
Why to Choose a Custom Wood Garage Door
When shopping for a garage door replacement, the materials that the door will be made of is an important consideration. Residences located in regions where the temperatures remain mild year round can often get by with non-insulated doors. If the garage door installation will be on a home located in a region that regularly has cold winters or very hot summers, insulated garage doors are more appropriate. Many homeowners seek custom wood garage doors for their beauty, but the benefits and drawbacks should be considered before making a final garage door replacement purchase.
Wood is a lovely natural material and is easy to work with, making it popular for creating custom garage doors. When the aesthetic and curb appeal of the home are of tantamount importance (and when are they are not?), custom wood doors can really improve the look of a house. But being a natural material doesn't mean that wood does not have certain drawbacks.
Wood contracts in dry and cold weather conditions, and expands in hot, humid, and wet conditions. These natural changes make wood doors more susceptible to cracks and gaps than many other garage door materials. Sun, rain, and ice all beat down on garage doors and tend to create fading on wooden doors. In order to protect wood doors from wear and tear caused by the elements, they must be resealed or repainted approximately every two years. The naturally occurring changes in the wood can also cause paint to chip, so it is important that annual maintenance be observed and completed appropriately. Professional garage door services can be hired to provide regular maintenance of the doors, but homeowners who choose the wood option should be prepared to do a bit of maintenance work so as to preserve the beauty of the wooden doors.
While beauty is the most obvious benefit of wood as a door material, the ease with which is it worked is what makes wood a great material. Wood gives homeowners the option to have windows in the garage doors of nearly any shape and style imaginable. Matching the garage door windows to those on the rest of the home helps maintain a cohesive look across the structure. Custom wood garage doors can also be designed to work in a selection of ways. They can be sectional, and open with an overhead automatic garage door opener. They can also be in one piece and tilt up to open. Carriage house style doors open from the center out. Still yet, custom wood garage doors can even be hung to slide sideways, much like wooden doors commonly found in barns. They can also be stained to create a rich natural look, or painted any color available.
It is up to the homeowner to decide whether custom wood garage doors are worth the regular maintenance and upkeep in order to get custom beauty for the home's exterior. Of course, beauty isn't everything. For many, the appeal of custom wood doors is the ability to select how the door will function. Functionality often wins out over beauty.