Garage doors make up a significant part of your home’s curb appeal. An old garage door can be an eyesore and detract from your home’s aesthetic style while also being a safety and security hazard.

Our team at R&S Erection of Vallejo, Inc., knows that either a garage door remodel or a new garage door can be the perfect solution for upgrading your home’s exterior as well as your garage interior. Whether you want a completely new door or an update to your existing one, we’re here to help you get the most out of your next garage door renovation.

Garage Door Remodel: Replacement vs Repair

Many homeowners find that a well-chosen garage door makeover improves their home’s curb appeal or helps it fit in better with the neighborhood style. But while an upgrade is an appealing option to enhance your home’s value, it does entail a relatively high upfront cost.

Another option is a garage door remodel with a new coat of paint and repair of minor issues. A garage door makeover may not generate the same excitement as a complete replacement, but it’s better for the budget.

Call us at R&S Erection of Vallejo, Inc. for garage door repair in Vacaville, which is the best option for most owners. However, if your garage door was installed 30 years ago, replacing it with a new panel and opening system can change how the entire house looks and feels and is worth the added expense and time.

Existing Garage Door Makeover

Sometimes, a makeover is as simple as painting your garage door to match your home’s exterior. It’s a relatively simple project that can have a big impact.

Clean and prepare

The first step in any makeover project is to prepare the garage door for a new coat of paint. This includes cleaning the door with suitable cleaning materials to remove grime, then removing old coats of paint and masking off the trim to prevent painting accidents.

Choose your color

Since a garage door takes up more visual space than the front door, your color choice will have a massive impact on the personality and appeal of your home.

General tips for garage door color choices include:

•         Stick with a neutral color if you want to sell your house soon.
•         If your home is generally neutral in style, consider a bright color to add interest to your home’s exterior.
•         Paint the trim and details in a muted, complimentary color.
•         Consider your landscaping and how the garage door’s color will look against a more natural backdrop.

Paint your door

Once you’ve chosen your paint color, the hard work begins. Start by priming the door with a paint primer. Ensure that your door material needs a different primer than a wood one. Priming seals the door and gives the paint something to stick to, helping the paint look better for longer.

Optimizing Your New Garage Door Installation

If your garage doors and mechanisms are showing their age, a simple makeover may not be enough. A new garage door offers a great opportunity to transform your house into a dream home, complete with a convenient garage that does more than provide a safe spot for your car.

Garage door remodel inspiration

The internet is a great place for ideas, and many door manufacturers will provide a virtual planning space that let you superimpose various options onto a picture of your house. Don’t forget to ask friends for brand recommendations and check out the neighborhood to see what styles are popular.

Speak to a professional installer

We recommend a professional garage door installation for many reasons. Installers can guide the homeowner through the selection process and have the expertise and contacts to provide high-quality materials at more affordable prices.

Which Steel Garage Door Is Best?

While wood remains one of the most popular materials for garage doors, modern steel doors can replicate the beauty of natural materials while also offering better insulation. They also allow for windows.

Single-layer

A painted, single-layer steel door is the most affordable option, but it compromises on insulation and durability. While galvanized steel doors won’t rust, they are susceptible to dents and scratches and require frequent maintenance.

Three-layer

These doors contain an insulated core and two steel or vinyl exterior layers. These doors are more robust and offer similar insulation capacity as wood. They are durable and the ideal middle ground between price and functionality.

Five-layer

Five-layer doors contain a low-maintenance exterior skin that can mimic wood, a three-layer insulation core, and a painted, interior-facing layer. While the most expensive option, a five-layer garage door will make your home feel warm and welcoming while requiring minimal maintenance.

Useful Upgrades

While the door is the most important consideration during a garage makeover, a smart owner will consider upgrading other aspects simultaneously. These can improve the functionality of the area or simply make opening and closing the door more convenient. Even installing a heater in the garage can make it feel more welcoming when you come home.

High-cycle torsion spring

Torsion springs are one of the first components to require maintenance. Standard springs have a lifespan of around 10,000 cycles of closing and opening the door, but higher-end options can last for up to 25,000 cycles, resulting in less maintenance.

Better rollers

Rollers impact how smoothly your door opens and how much noise it makes. While it may feel like a small change, you’ll quickly notice how much of a difference these high-quality rollers can make.

Windows in new garage doors

If you use your garage as a workshop, you’ll appreciate having some natural light. Garage windows can lighten up the room, and since the windows often come in frosted versions, you don’t need to worry about sacrificing your privacy.

Work With The Best

If you’ve read about the most common garage door problems and have the same issues, consider calling us at R&S Erection of Vallejo, Inc. We have decades of experience installing and maintaining garage doors for California residents, and we’d love to help you have a hassle-free garage door remodel. Call us at (707) 644-5537 for a free consultation today!

Your garage door is a significant investment that protects your vehicles and other possessions and provides entry into your home. A high-quality, well-maintained garage door can last for years. Following a garage door maintenance checklist once or twice yearly will ensure you keep it in its best condition.

Between the weather’s effects and daily use, your garage door withstands much wear and tear. While you can perform some basic maintenance, some problems are beyond the average homeowner. Contact a garage door technician if your door has severe damage or is inoperable.

The longer you wait to service your garage door, the more problems it will develop. Learn about the signs it’s time to replace a garage door and determine if your needs exceed what maintenance provides. If not, follow the tips below to fix more minor issues.

Garage Door Maintenance Tasks

Specific garage door maintenance tasks may vary depending on the season. Regardless, you should know how to perform maintenance whenever you need to. The following tasks are crucial to include in your regular maintenance regimen year-round. 

Inspect and repair the equipment

The first step of your garage door maintenance checklist should be to inspect the garage door, its operating device, and additional equipment. Without adequately running machinery, your door won’t open or may only open partially.

Note minor damage that could cause future problems. The most basic physical concerns include frayed or exposed wires, rusting metal parts, and other physical damage.

It’s necessary to repair these most fundamental issues as soon as you spot them. Otherwise, these inconveniences become more significant problems later.

Inspect the door for damage

Years of rain, sunlight, and humidity are no friend to your garage door. These elements cause rusting and decrease your door’s longevity and weather resistance. A garage door with physical damage is prone to further mold growth and moisture accumulation.

Gaps in weatherstripping, faded areas, and structural cracks are the most common damage to garage doors. UV rays can make your garage door fade, and mold growth causes additional deterioration.

Weatherstripping keeps drafts and water out during California’s rainy weather. Inspect the door’s weatherstripping for damaged areas. Wash away mold on the door with an aggressive cleaner safe for its material.

Wash the door and other parts

A clean garage door makes your property look great and prevents dirt, debris, and mold from damaging the door or getting indoors. Thoroughly cleaning your door helps keep it in top shape. Here’s how:

• Wipe the door’s surface with mild soap
• Rinse with a hose
• Clean windows with glass cleaner
• Apply paint to painted doors or stain wooden garage doors appropriately
• Check that all minor metal parts are tightened and lubricated

Dirt, dust, and other contaminants build up on the garage door tracks and can be tough to remove. Professionals can clean them properly or provide reliable replacements if they’re too dirty to function. 

Check moving parts for functionality

After inspecting the door system and clearing it of debris, the next step of the garage door maintenance checklist is to test the door’s moving parts. Carefully check the rollers, garage door springs, vertical and horizontal tracks, pulleys, cables, hinges, and the spring bar. If you see no damage in these areas, test the door.

Open and close your garage door as you normally would. Be mindful of unusual noises, and note whether it struggles to move along the track.

The door should close entirely and move smoothly without making creaking, squeaking, or grinding sounds. If you encounter any trouble here, you’ll need professional repair.

Test the garage door opener

Without a working garage door opener, your door won’t operate properly. Your door opener should be responsive and have a working backup system. If this isn’t the case, reach out to professionals.

Check that your garage door opener remote has working batteries and that the opener’s lights work when the door opens. Inspect the opener’s wires, belt, and motor gears for tears and other damage, and schedule repairs when necessary.

All garage doors must come with a backup battery system. Test the battery and get a replacement if it doesn’t work.

Check the safety features

Safety features like auto reversal are crucial to preventing accidents. Without regular maintenance, the sensors become dirty and disrupt the mechanisms necessary to stop your door’s operation.

After cleaning the sensors on your garage door opener, put an object in the door’s path and close the door to test it. If this function doesn’t work, you should consider immediate repairs.

Garage door maintenance should include lubricating moving parts

This step is optional in your garage door maintenance checklist, but it can add many years to your garage door’s life. Lubrication keeps mechanical parts moving smoothly. Older garage doors or those with minor rusting may face some resistance when opening and closing, and so will need lubrication.

Key places to apply oil or another lubricant include:

• The horizontal and vertical tracks
• The spring bar
• Hinges and brackets
• The end-bearing plates 

Balance the door

The last step of your garage door maintenance checklist is to balance the door. An unbalanced door won’t stay upright without assistance and applies negative pressure on the opening mechanism. This behavior results in significantly decreased garage door life.

To check the door’s balance, open it manually. Once the door is half open, release it. If it doesn’t stay up, you should contact a garage door repair company for service.

Contact A Professional Garage Door Repair Company

By following a comprehensive garage door maintenance checklist, you can keep garage doors of any type durable for years. Scheduling garage door repairs alongside maintenance will further increase your door’s lifespan. If maintenance and repairs aren’t enough, expert garage door replacement from R&S Erection of Vallejo, Inc. can resolve your concerns. 

Choose garage door repair professionals in Napa, CA, from R&S Erection of Vallejo, Inc., when you need reliable, individualized garage door repair services. Contact our friendly garage door technicians with your questions. Call our Vallejo office today at 707-644-5537. 

There are multiple reasons to upgrade your manual garage door to an automatic model, including safety, security, and convenience. If your current automatic door opener is 25 years or older (installed prior to 1993), you’ll also benefit from the efficient and safety-oriented features of newer, automatic models.

Upgrade Your Garage Door

Here are eight reasons to upgrade your old, manual garage door. 

Safety First

First and foremost, your manual garage door isn’t as safe as it’s automatic counterparts. Without the security of an automatic operating system, your manual garage door is more likely to close on a pet, a child, yourself, or your valuable toys if they get in the way. There are no lasers or safety sensors to stop the garage door in its tracks. 

These features not only reduce garage door accidents, but they can also save lives. 

Convenience 

Perhaps you used to pride yourself on the fact that you were able to get out of the car and manually open and close your garage door. It’s extra exercise, right? Or, perhaps you didn’t want to spend the extra money.  

99.9% of homeowners who make the move from manual to automatic garage door openers never regret it. And, we’ve yet to meet the .1% who regret it – we just wanted to err on the side of the conservative. The good news is that you always have the opportunity to switch the electric door into the manual mode whenever you need to. 

Lighting 

The extra light that automatically turns on when you open and close the garage door is a welcome change from the dark you’re used to once the sunsets. Automatic garage door lights are automatically timed to give you plenty of time to get into your car and back out, or to park, gathering your things from the car, and enter the home or breezeway. 

Keep in mind that some LED lights can interfere with your garage door code. Always use high-quality LED garage door light brands or have your garage door technician replace it when needed to avoid the potential of frequency interference. 

Security 

In addition to posing safety hazards, manual garage doors are far less secure than automatic models. They offer several security-oriented features, including: 

• Entry code pads. Entry codes can be programmed as needed, and reprogrammed if compromised. They protect your home and keep children or others from having spare keys that are easily lost/found by the wrong entities. 
• Rolling codes. Your garage door mechanism can continually reprogram itself and the remote, ensuring nobody else in the neighborhood can sync their garage door opener to your door. 
• Lock features. You can lock the garage so it can’t be reopened until the right code is pushed in or you remove the lock feature yourself. 
• Vacation mode. This disables the garage door from being able to work with remote control. The door can only be opened from the inside. Once you’re home, taking the door off vacation mode re-programs it to your remotes. 

Energy efficiency 

Original automatic doors required far more energy than today’s models. Innovative garage door models that are lighter and less dense, combined with more efficient operating systems, means your garage door automatically opens and closes while using minimal amounts of energy. 

If energy efficiency is important to you, read our Guide to Having An Eco-Friendly Garage Door. 

Easier maintenance 

Well-made and professionally installed automatic garage doors require minimal maintenance to work efficiently and reliably all year long. One annual maintenance appointment from a licensed garage door technician is all your door will need for decades to come.  

If you have an old, manual door, odds are you’re performing the maintenance on your own, more often, and that can be dangerous. Once your automatic door is installed, all you’ll need to do is keep the mechanical parts lubricated and the lasers and track free of debris or blockage. We’ll take care of the rest. 

Smart technology 

Automatic garage door manufacturers have jumped on the smart technology bandwagon. You have the ability to open and close your garage door from your smartphone or gadgets. The system will also sound an alert or alarm if the door is opened – or left open – to keep you informed. 

Quieter operation 

 Your older garage door and its springs are likely pretty creaky and squeaky as you open and close it. And then, there’s the decided “bang” when it’s dropped or let go into the fully open or closed position.  

You and your family (not to mention the neighbors) will appreciate the quiet and streamlined open/close functions associated with your newer, automatic model. 

Upgrade your garage door for peace of mind 

All it takes is one serious illness, a major sprain or break, or the simple aging process to interfere with your ability to open and close your garage door on your own. Having an automatic garage door, with innovative safety and security features, means your door will continue to open and close with a simple press of a button, regardless of what the future holds.  

Update your curb appeal 

If you have a manual garage door, odds are it’s detracting from your home’s curb appeal. With so many contemporary styles and colors to choose from, your new garage door will give your home a much-needed facelift.

We’re Here When You’re Ready

Are you interested in learning more about reliable, affordable automatic garage door options? Contact us here at R&S Erection in Vallejo, or give us a call at (707) 644-5537. We’ll help you select the perfect door design and model for your home and price range.

Ever since humans invented wheels, and used them to cart their goods or transport their bodies from one place to another, there has been a desire to safely shelter their particular modes of transportation. 

As a result, the doors (or lack thereof) that protected these valuable possessions have gone through an evolution that is in direct correlation with the invention of power, automation, and the availability of ever lighter-weight materials.

Garage Doors Through The Ages And How they’ve Progressed

The original garage door was a framed opening 

The first evidence of wheels showed up in 3500 B.C.E., and archeologists think wheels may have been invented and used even prior to that. Originally, wheeled carts and wagons were secured in open caves or covered enclosures. Eventually, and depending on the skill or wealth of the wheeled object’s owner, they were further secured via doorways that were typically created from wood, tanned animal skins, or woven piece of cloth. 

The advent of the carriage house door 

As time marched on, wealthier cart and carriage owners, or those who had skilled hands and access to building materials, constructed wooden doorways – called gatehouse or carriage house doors. 

These doors were very heavy, which made them very secure and harder to open or break open when barred close. And, because carriage houses often housed the animals who pulled the carriage, the buildings were detached from the home. The doors were made of wood, very large, and quite wieldy to open. Carriage house doors usually consisted of two separate panels that swung out to gain access. 

From carriage house to garage door 

Those of us who have the honor to live in an older home, circa 1900 and prior, may even have a surviving carriage house, now converted to a bona fide garage, a rental/in-law unit, or some other outbuilding purpose. 

Most of us, however, live in homes, condos, or apartments with designated garages. This is mostly thanks due to Henry Ford, who took the invention of the automobile and put his assembly line stamps on the works. As a result, automobiles became available to the middle-class and working masses, which meant car owners needed a place to store them safely and securely. 

Since automobiles were smaller than most wagons or carriages, and there weren’t any horses, feed, or tack to store, the larger carriage house was scaled down to the standard residential garages we use today. That said, garages needed to be as protected from the weather as possible because early automobiles were completely open, so they needed a weatherproof environment when not in use. 

Early garages came in multiple forms. Some were attached to the residential building, but most were detached from homes, and that continued to be the case until well into the 20th century. In any event, the first written record of the term “garage,” is in a 1902 dictionary, where its French root, “garer,” refers to a shelter or cover. 

First was the sliding door 

The first major change from the dual-opening carriage house style doors was sliding door versions. The addition of circular casters on a horizontal track made it much easier for drivers and car owners of all ages and abilities to open and close their own garage door – regardless of their upper-body strength.  

There were also sliding versions designed with accordion-like, folding sections, which meant garages could be narrower and take up less space. 

Then came the overhead, hinged version 

A man named J.C. Johnson, owner of a company called Overhead Door Corporation wanted to design a door that was more streamlined and easier to open. In 1921, he successfully invented an overhead door that opened by lifting and swinging it upwards, allowing it to rest parallel to the garage door when in the fully-up position. The spring action eased the burden of the door weight from the person opening/closing the door to the opening mechanism’s structural strength. 

Later on that same decade, he invented an electric, automated version, but these were largely unavailable to the majority of Americans because they were too expensive.  

Attached garages became the norm 

By the 1950s, as post-war housing boom and a growing economy – along with an obsession with modern conveniences – developers began promoting the attached garage model. Attached garages have since become the norm, and they began to expand in size to the two-car garages we’re familiar with today as households recognized the benefits of a multi-car ownership. 

Our love of multicar ownership meant that, by the late 1960s, garage square footage was an average of 45% of the total house square footage! 

Garage doors through the ages went from wood to metal 

Until the 1970s, most garage doors were constructed from wood, and this meant they were heavy and cumbersome to operate – especially if you didn’t have an electric garage door. However, as steel and metal prices came down, and fabrication processes continued to innovate, the wood garage door made way for aluminum, steel, and fiberglass options. 

Fabricated doors were typically more affordable than their wooden counterparts, easier to maintain and repaint, and they are certainly lighter and more efficient to operate.  

Garage doors have come a long way in the past several hundred years, and today’s homeowners have the ability to choose from an unbelievable range of styles, décor, colors, and automatic system features.

If You’re Ready To Update Your Garage Door

Are you in the market for a new garage door? Contact us here at R&S Erection of Vallejo to schedule a free, no-obligation consultation. We’ll help you choose the best, contemporary garage door for your needs.